I will get a couple of
their cane chairs, too, they are very light and comfortable."
In the afternoon they again embarked, and then steamed away for
Sierra Leone. After several days' passage, they arrived there at
daylight, and Frank was soon on deck.
"What a beautiful place!" he exclaimed. "It is not a bit what I
expected."
"No," Mr. Goodenough said; "no one looking at it could suppose
that bright pretty town had earned for itself the name of the white
man's grave."
Sierra Leone is built on a somewhat steep ascent about a mile up
the river. Freetown, as the capital is properly called, stands some
fifty feet or so above the sea, and the barracks upon a green hill
three hundred feet above it, a quarter of a mile back. The town, as
seen from the sea, consists entirely of the houses of the merchants
and shopkeepers, the government buildings, churches, and other
public and European buildings. The houses are all large and bright
with yellow tinged whitewash, and the place is completely embowered
in palms and other tropical trees. The native town lies hidden from
sight among trees on low ground to the left of the town. Everywhere
around the town the hills rise steep and high, wooded to the
summit.
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