in Western In Western Africa the cultivation consists only in exposing Cultivation a small portion of the surface mould just sufficient to cover the Africa. seeds, without applying the least scientific measures towards the improvement of them. Their mode of cultivation answers remarkably to the description given of a Hindu field, in the highest state of cultivation, by Mill,-" Everything which savours of ingenuity, even the most natural results of common observation and good sense, are foreign to the agriculture of the" people of Western Africa. "Their ideas of improvement are very limited; they scarcely extend beyond the introduction of irrigation into land which was formerly cultivated dry. Each small proprietor is content to follow the customs of his forefathers; the same rude implements of husbandry, the same inferior race of cattle, and the same practices, are still in operation, which have existed unchanged for centuries. As to any new experiments of general measuring, drainage, differences in the rotation of crops, introducing new grain or vegetables, or new sorts of those already known, any attention to their breed of cattle, any adoption of a better and more combined system by which a smaller number of people could raise the same, or a larger proportion of produce-all these are out of the question." It is a great pity to find that the Colonial Government still neglects to promote agriculture, and to assist in developing the natural resources of the country, although this was pointed out in the Parliamentary Committee of 1842. This neglect is a great drawback to the prosperity of the various colonies. The European merchants seek quick returns and large profits, and consequently do not give the necessary encouragement and direction to profitable industry. How truly Mr Attarra has said, "It is truly surprising that in a colony like [Sierra Leone] agriculture is considered a thing of little importance. Had education been warmly taken up as the invaluable birthright of the African, he would have viewed the matter with the right eye, and seen that far from being a low employment, agriculture furnishes the most delightful occupation for such a creature as man." Drainage and sewerage cities. In 1842 the Parliamentary Committee urged upon the Colonial Government the necessity of introducing cotton as an article of trade, and Sir P. F. Buxton did the same some years ago; "but the African cotton brought to the English market was through the exertions of a private friend of Africa, who sent out a small sum and a few cleaning machines to a native teacher in Africa." The first consignment was in 1852, which was small, but this rapidly increased, until in the eighth year it reached to 4000 cwts. * Mr Rosenbush has remarked, that the greatest requirement of the colony is agriculture, and he recommends the establishment of a model farm by convict labour; and the Rev. Henry Venn says," A model farm, to be of real service, should also be a botanical garden for ascertaining and cultivating the best specimens of native produce, and for receiving from the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew specimens of tropical plants which might be introduced into Western Africa." The Colonial Government has never attempted to develope the natural resources of Africa, although the natives are in that stage of civilisation in which such an attempt would produce a very profitable result. The Government, to make their efforts productive of good, should establish model farms, should give prizes to successful producers of agricultural produce, should form public warehouses where small farmers might store their goods for shipment, and should give as much as possible encouragement and facilities for shipment. There is nothing so necessary for the healthy growth of a in towns and community as the drainage and sewerage of the towns they inhabit, and the inefficient mode in which this is done in Western Africa shows that the general population or their superiors have set a limit to their own existence. Yes. "The air we breathe, loaded with carbonaceous matter, sulphurous and sulphuric acid, sulphate of ammonia, and sulphuretted hydrogen, is deprived, by the absence of vegetation, of the revivifying principle, oxygen, and is hence less fitted for the *Notices of the British Colonies on the West Coast of Africa, p. 32. necessary changes of the blood effected during respiration. The earth which we tread under our feet, loaded with the ashes of our forefathers, and rich with the remains of animal and vegetable matter of ages long gone by, saturated with the putrefying contents of cesspools and leaking sewers of our own day, emits, at certain seasons of the year, the poisonous emanations which generate typhus, diarrhoea, dysentery, and cholera; whilst the waters of our principal tidal rivers, converted into open common sewers, teem with pestiferous exhalations charged with the germ of disease or the messenger of death. If under these favourable conditions a pestilential epidemic invade our shores, it finds us an unprepared and easy prey." public health This should be an important subject with the Governor- officer of General of the Coast. An officer of public health should be appointed in the various colonies in the Coast Government, and ample means afforded him for the efficient performance of the duties which would devolve upon him. He should be made plainly and distinctly to know that his duties are-To examine and watch over the health of the population at large; to see that the water is pure and plentifully supplied; to ascertain that every public building and the dwelling-houses of the poor are properly ventilated; to prevent the committing of nuisances in the streets and lanes of towns and villages, or in their immediate neighbourhood, the burial of the dead in houses, and all noxious and unwholesome trade from being carried on within a given distance from the towns and dwelling-houses; to establish public slaughtering-houses and burial-grounds; to make strict sanitary inspection of all trading vessels; and especially to "lay down and carry out an effectual, efficient, complete, and common-sense plan of drainage and sewerage for every town and city." of sewage. The sewage of towns and cities consists of the solid and Composition fluid excreta of men and animals, which, if not continually removed from the dwelling-houses, or if inefficiently removed, H Sewage in Freetown in particular. forms one of the most prolific sources of disease. Taken at an average of all ages, and the mean throughout the whole year, man passes daily about 2 ounces of fæcal, and 40 ounces of urinary matter; or a town containing a population of 1000 people excrete in one year 25 tons of fæcal or solid matter, and 91,250 gallons of urine. In many of the rural districts of Western Africa, and in many small towns, the sewage matter is deposited in the fields, and by the action of the sea, the air, and rain, enters into the soil, which it fertilises ; but in those villages where these substances are left on the streets, exposing the population to its emanations, produced by the action of the rain and other atmospheric influences, it becomes a source of very great danger to human life. But it is in large towns that it becomes essentially a quesAfrica, and tion of life and death, which should call forth the energy and ability of both Government and people to stay the mischief that will arise from it. In many places in Western Africa— say, for instance, Freetown, in Sierra Leone-there is no proper organised means for removing the sewage of the town; all the inhabitants, or the ninety-nine in a hundred, use cesspools, which consist of a large hole dug in the ground in the immediate vicinity of the dwelling-houses, or connected with them ; the hole being covered by a wood work or frame. These open privys are some of them full, and most in a state approaching it. There are, it must be distinctly remembered, no legislative Acts compelling the population to keep them in order and in a proper sanitary state; no Government inspection has ever been made of them; and in consequence of this, and the apathy of landowners and inmates of dwelling-houses as regards the removal of their contents, and their total ignorance of the use of deodorisers and disinfectants, the sewage of Freetown becomes the source of a pernicious emanation, and the chief cause why, at certain seasons of the year, fevers of the most virulent type always break out. It is strange that the European inhabitants, whose lives are so much imperilled and jeopardised, have not long before this endeavoured strenuously to rouse the local Government from its apathy on this point. It is a question of life and death, and I, consequently, bring it prominently forward here for their notice and consideration. An organised system of sewage removal must be adopted; a legislative Act compelling the use of cheap deodorisers and disinfectants should be enforced; and not till the local Government condescend to think on these apparently small matters, will any real improvement in the healthiness of the climate of Freetown take place. urine and creted in twelve months. The population of Freetown may be put down as 20,000. Quantity of If the average daily quantity of excreta be, per each indivi- fæces exdual (man, woman, and child), 2 ounces of fæcal matter, Freetown in and 40 ounces of urine, these 20,000 people excrete every wh day 3125 lbs. of fæces, and 5000 gallons of urine; or, in a year, 500,000 tons of solids or fæces, and 1,825,000 gallons of urine. These figures show only the excreta for a twelvemonth of the population of Freetown. But the cesspools are far from being emptied yearly. Five, six, seven, eight years' accumulation, and even more, are continually found in the city, with little or no use of deodoriser or disinfectant; and do these increase the health of the town and country around? or do they not add immeasurably to all the causes already enumerated in making the place, as one fantastic writer has called it," a Golgotha and a Gehena? دو Besides the fæcal and urinal discharge of man, there are exposed, in various parts of the town, excrementitial discharges of various kinds of lower animals, refuse vegetable and animal matter in various stages of decomposition, and the blood of animals. composition The ultimate composition of the solids and fluids of sew- Ultimate age are-phosphates, urates, ammoniacal salts, salts of potash, of sewage. soda, lime, magnesia, and alumina, silica, oxides of iron and of zinc, sulphuric or phosphoric acid. Besides these there are gaseous bodies emitted, consisting principally of the most deadly poisons, and which form the source of |