Often
they are made to look extra mean by a noble "cottonwood," or
Bombax (Pentandrium), standing on its stalwart braces like an old
sea-dog with parted legs; extending its roots over a square acre
of soil, shedding filmy shade upon the surrounding underwood, and
at all times ready, like a certain chestnut, to shelter a hundred
horses.
Between the Plateau and Santa Clara, beginning some two miles
below the former, are those hated and hating rivals, Louis Town,
Qua Ben, and Prince Krinje, the French settlements. The latter is
named after a venerable villain who took in every white man with
whom he had dealings, till the new colony abolished that
exclusive agency, that monopoly so sacred in negro eyes, which
here corresponded with the Abbanat of the Somal. Mr. Wilson (p.
252) recounts with zest a notable trick played by this "little,
old, grey-headed, humpback man" upon Captain Bouet-Willaumez, and
Mr. W. Winwood Reade (chap, xi.) has ably dramatized "Krinji,
King George and the Commandant." On another occasion, the whole
population of the Gaboon was compelled by a French man-o-war to
pay "Prince Cringy's" debts, and he fell into disfavour only when
he attempted to wreck a frigate by way of turning an honest
penny.
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