He is not the only peculiar governor with which the Gambia has been afflicted; one in particular I can remember who was notorious for his parsimony throughout West Africa. I had known this potentate when he revolved in a more humble sphere, and during one of my visits to Bathurst (I shall not say in what year) I allowed myself the honour of calling on him. At about 1 p.m. I presented myself at the door of Government House and knocked; not a soul was to be seen anywhere, and the place might have been deserted. I kept on knocking louder and louder for some minutes, and then as nobody answered and the door was wide open I walked in. I traversed one room, and, turning round the corner of a screen, discovered a person attired in very seedy garments employed in cutting mouthfuls off a slab of mahogany-coloured meat which lay in a plate on a chair. This was the governor, but I should never have recognised him in that position had it not been for the suit of clothes he was wearing and which I remembered having seen on him some years before. He received me with great affability, asked me to sit down, and conversed about mutual acquaintances. He did not ask me to join him in his lunch, for which I was not sorry, but he did ask me to have a glass of wine. He said:
“I beg your pardon, I didn’t quite catch....”
I said, “I don’t quite know what you mean.”
“You don’t know pam wine? It is the sap of the pam tree; the natives bring it round to sell. It is very refreshing.”
He meant that horrible emetic known as palm wine, and I declined with thanks.
The subjects of this monarch said that he kept no servants, and made a police orderly do all the housework. I saw nobody at all. They added that he gave a small dinner once a quarter, and that everybody ate a good square meal before going to it, because they knew that they would not get enough to satisfy hunger at his table. All these West African Governors neglect their duty in the matter of entertaining, though they receive a special table allowance of £500 a year for that purpose. A circular from the Colonial Office pointing out that that money is intended for entertainment, and not for the defraying of ordinary household expenses, would not be out of place.