The chief town in the delta of the Niger is that of Bonny, of which George Pepple is the nominal king; he has, however, no power or influence of any kind, and the real king is old Oko Jumbo, a veteran chief, who has a large trading establishment by the riverside and is very rich and prosperous.
George Pepple is like the average of Christianized negroes in West Africa. A few years ago he was expelled from his kingdom by his subjects, on account of the trouble he was bringing on the community by his habit of obtaining goods from the traders and then repudiating the debt, and went to England to spend the money with which his peculiar method of doing business had provided him. In England he was baptized by the Bishop of London, and made much of by undiscriminating persons. One of his wives had accompanied him, and in London she acquired a liking for cordial Old Tom, under the influence of which she neglected to treat her liege lord with that deference which he considered his due. Under these circumstances George Pepple determined to execute her, and applied to the Lord Mayor for permission, merely as a matter of form and to show that he knew what was due to the prejudices of foreigners. He was much astonished and annoyed when he learned that such an execution would be deemed a murder, and that the law of England presumed to interfere in purely domestic episodes of this nature. Shortly after this Pepple returned to Bonny; but before leaving England he induced several credulous Englishmen to accompany him, promising them high and lucrative positions about his court and person, such as Master of the Horse, Chief Equerry, Groom in Waiting, and so on. After having made elaborate preparations and being put to the expense of the journey to Bonny, one can imagine the feelings of these men on finding that the palace consisted of a mud hut and the kingdom of a few acres of swamp, even in which limited monarchy his authority was _nil_. In 1876 Pepple returned to England to try his old plan of obtaining goods on credit, and was again treated as a great African potentate, being entertained by the Lord Mayor, and his daily doings being duly chronicled by the press. He has lately been released from the durance vile in which his subjects had been keeping him on account of some misdemeanour, but is still under a cloud, as his peculiarities are so well known, and he is treated with but scant ceremony by the natives and traders of Bonny river. As an instance of how little African royalty is in consonance with European, I may mention that Pepple’s eldest son was, until very recently, post-master at Accra with a salary of some 50_l._ a year.