The Period That A Boy Remains In His Beloved "We Country"
Seems To Be Until His Allowance Of His Own Earnings Is Expended.
One Can Picture To One's Self Some Sad Partings In That Far-Away
Dark Land.
"My loves," says the Kruboy to his families, his voice
heavy with tears, "I must go.
There is no more cloth, I have
nothing between me and an easily shocked world but this decayed
filament of cotton." And then his families weep with him, or, what
is more likely, but not so literary, expectorate with emotion, and
he tears himself away from them and comes on board the passing
steamer in the uniform of Gunga Din - "nothing much before and rather
less than half of that behind," and goes down Coast on the strength
of the little bit of paper from his white master which he has
carefully treasured, and works like a nigger in the good sense of
the term for another spell, to earn more goods for his home-folk.
Those boys who are first starting on travelling to work, and those
without books, have no difficulty in getting passages on the
steamers, for a captain is glad to get as many on board as he can,
being sure to get their passage money and a premium for them, so
great is the demand for Kru labour. But even this help to working
the West Coast has been much interfered with of late years by the
action of the French Government in imposing a tax per head on all
labourers leaving their ports on the Ivory Coast.
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