the local equivalent for curry, pepper-pot, or palm-oil chop; it can be eaten thick or thin, according to taste, but it must always be as hot as possible.  The mould sells for half a dollar at the factories, and many are exported to adulterate chocolate and cocoa, which it resembles in smell and oily flavour.  I regret to say that travellers have treated this national relish disrespectfully, as continentals do our “plomb-boudin:”  Mr. W. Winwood Reade has chaffed it, and another Briton has compared it with “greaves.”

At “Cockerapeak,” or, to speak less unpoetically, when Alectryon sings his hymn to the dawn, the working bees of the little hive must be up and stirring, whilst the master and mistress enjoy the beauty-sleep.  “Early to bed, and early to rise,” is held only fit to make a man surly, and give him red eyes, by all wild peoples, who have little work, and who justly hold labour an evil less only than death.  Amongst the Bedawin it is a sign of Shaykh-dom not to retire before dawn, and I have often heard the Somal “palavering” after midnight.  As a rule the barbarian enjoys his night chat and smoke round the fire all the more because he drinks or dozes through the better part of the day.  There is a physical reason for the preference.  The absence of light stimulus, and the changes which follow sunset seem to develope in him a kind of night-fever as in the nervous temperament of Europe.  Hence so many students choose the lamp in preference to the sun, and children mostly clamour when told at 8 o’clock to go to bed.

Shortly after sunrise the young ones are bathed in the verandah.  Here also the mistress smooths her locks, rumpled by the night, “tittivates” her macaw-crest with the bodkin, and anoints her hair and skin with a tantinet of grease and palm oil.  Some, but by no means all, proceed for ablution to the stream-side, and the girls fetch water in heavy earthen jars, containing perhaps two gallons; they are strung, after the Kru fashion, behind the back by a band passing across the forehead.  When we meet them they gently say “Mbolo!” (good morning), or “Oresa” (are you well)?  At this hour, however, all are not so civil, the seniors are often uncommonly cross and surly, and the mollia tempora fandi may not set in till after the first meal—­I have seen something of the kind in England.  The sex, impolitely said to have one fibre more in the heart and one cell less in the brain, often engages in a violent wordy war; the tornado of wrath will presently pass over, and leave clear weather for the day.  In the evening, when the electric fluid again gathers heavily, there will be another storm.  Meanwhile, superintended by the mistress, all are occupied with the important duty of preparing the morning meal.  It is surprising how skilful are these heaven-born cooks; the excellent dishes they make out of “half-nothing.”  I preferred the cuisine of Forteune’s wives to that of the Plateau, and, after finding that money was current in the village, I never failed to secure their good offices.