The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1846-11-10 00:00:00

the same interesting

many additional pas

yellers, and o
bare footed it

the battered gem of the world, Rim
benediction of tbe_ triple crowned pon

But I hear distant music, and the people are wending
their way towards it. The procession approaches : there
are forty sable clad monks; two hundred men and boys,
in white vestments, chanting ; eight men staggering under
a huge gilded group of carved figures, angels, and cupids !
twenty donnas, with black veils, bearing tapers ; twenty
girls in white veils, als.) bearing wax candles ; forty men

diers to protect them from insult. The Psalms, as in
London, chanted very beautifully ! But the wind sits in
the shoulder of our sail ; the steam is up, and we are off
to Civita Vecchia and Ronne—" Rome, the imperial mis-
tress of the world." With the exception of the arsenal
and harbour, Civita Vecchia is a poor, unhealthy, and
The I contemptible little town, and half an hour

devoted pilgrims slept on the deck near the horse boxes
for warmth, without any other covering than their coarse
woollen cowl and hood. Dr. B. and myself persuaded
one of these self-denying, body-mortifying monks, with
great difficulty, to take some of the delicious wine, called
lachymte Christi. their only luxury appeared to be the
constant use of snuff, of which they enjoyed copious in-
halations. At Leghorn you meet with the same noisy
vociferous grasping boatmen you do at Genoa, and as
they know your luggage must be debarked and pass the
Dogana, they take great liberties, and try all sorts of
impositions. One gentleman's luggage was seized by six
sturdy half-clad ruffians, and he administered some very
liberal chastisement ; but this is not always quite safe, as
I am told they carry knives in their sleeves, and shake
them out and use them with great energy and prompt;

At Legho

Dr forty thousand

and mild, the liberty of

blowing brass inArnments, and as they cease, dru
fifes add their shrill, harsh, but spirit-stirring sounds
We enter the church before we re-embark ; and who can-
not, amid solemn music, the eve
tics!, zraceful uictutes sympathise with the my

treets in t

r-burning lig

ted painted in 1

adulteria violent

Of seats they tell whence p.iests 'mid tapers dim
Breathed the warm prayer or tuned the midnight hymn
To scenes like the e the fainting -
Revenge and anger i❑ those cells expo,.
By pity soothed, remorse lost half her tears,

ly pretty well

will sometimes laugh, leer

soul retired,

And sc;ften'd pride dropp'd penitential tears.
At my second visit, returning from Palermo and Na-
s, I went to the Jew

e, splendldl

synagogue a

ght-ed by four hundred car,

he lar-

and women d

ligcnce, on our way

lie ancien

"ter our lan(
in nitirpri ti

city, but we c

the momentary imperfect gaze of the previous night. At
first, waking from the semblance of death, and ifoniering
where I might be, I thought of the delightful sensations
of Rogers the poet, and a voice said to my soul, as to his,
thou art in Rome.

venerates into
nrcf rinaa 11,11

y have commi

eir backs—omicidia

'io, forgo, &c. These fellows
aved, but, as at Rome, they
nd impudently ask you for a
felons scavengers, than men

in, as at

proceeded to the shore, where they built a ship which
carried them to another country. Could this tradition
have suggested to Shakespere the casket scene, in the
" Merchant of Venice" ?

Kings and chiefs, after death, are believed to enjoy an
eternity of the luxuries which they possessed on earth ;
whilst the paradise of the poor is cessation from labour.
Every family has its " Penates " and " Lares" in chosen
fetishes, to which they offer yams, &c. They are of all
imaginable deformity, and it would appear that adoration
increases in proportion to the hideousness of the object.
Wtien the Ashantees drink, they pour a little on the
floor as an offering

; and when they rise from their seats,
they are turned upon the sides to prevent the Devil slip-
ping into the vacated place. Their evil spirit is white, as
that of the Europeans is considered to be black, and no
doubt proc eding from the same feelings.
The minor considerations of the African's belief is truly
rid'culous, yet not one jot more so than many which ob-
tain in every other country in the world, from which the
most enlightened cannot be exempted. England has its
ghosts. witches, fortune-tellers, black cats; Scotland is
equally rationally populated with the addition of war•
locks, brownies, second-sights, &c.; whilst the Emerald
Isle " holds a glass that shews us many more." An
esteemed friend assures me, that, to his own knowledge,
persons have been buried in Ireland with money placed
in their hands to pay the toll to St. Peter, for admission
through the gates of heaven _ . .

" 0 that some Power the gift wad gie us

oursels as others see us

•
reach it until 11 p.m., and thus cur first impressions were
The following description of idolatrous worship is from
those of disappointment, St. Peters loomed through the the pen of the Rev. Thos. Raston, Wesleyan missionary,
midnight air, which was cold and murky, like some vast and pastor of the village of York, Sierra Leone, whose
private worth can only be equalled by his professional
castle in the clouds • but the clear, bright, balmy morn- utility :
ing, after a deep, refreshing slumber, soon repaid us for

" God has done much for these people; still the dark,
dark places of the earth are here darker than I could ever
have imagined, and the' Prince of Darkness' reigns, and
possesses an influence far more tantalising and terrific
than can be conceived. There is wickedness in high
places—wickedness where we had a right to expect reli-

glom
" This morning (May 31, 1843) I set out, accompanied
by four of our brethren, to visit the god house' of an
Aku-man, who resided some distance from the Mission-
house. When we arrived he was working in his farm,
and was sent for. In the mean time, his wife could not
be bribed to allow us, on any account, to see the objects
of their worship.

" When the man came, and saw us, with many others
who came to look on, he appeared very ferocious, and sat
in the gateway to prevent ingress. After assuring him of
our pacific intention, we were permitted to gaze on a sight
as filthy as it was idolatrous.

" We had much conversation with the man, in which
he seemed much interested ; but when I proposed to buy
his god, he became as infuriated as a madman, and a scene
ensued which baffles my powers of description.

" He snatched up an instrument of worship, of about
two feet in length, consisting of longiform bells, five at
each end, making a harsh noise. These he agitated vio-
lently. accompanied with the most hideous yells, and
painful contortions of the body.
" His honour for his god seemed to be awaked, and he
became frantic with zt-al. He darted from the place like
an arrow, running up the street as though mad with rage,
and back again in the same desperate manner, striking
several persons who ran with him into the god-house,
when they took up the musical instrument, and the play
of horror began ; and never did human eyes behold a
more dreadful display of Satan's power.
" The attitudes of the women were detestable, and their
yellings pierced the air, and the grating din of the instru-
ments, rendered the affair at once sickening and aopal-
ling. The dirty idols inside were the God and Goddess
of Thunder, called in Aku, " Rabba-rabba-cuta" and
Ab-hara.' Ah-hara,' the goddess, is in the zig-zag
character of lightning ; and every day these are presented
to be fed with palm oil and fee-fee. To these objects the
performer frequently turned himself ; and though waiting
for a reply, no reply came; when more loudly did he
clang his bells, and more ardently dance forcing those
around him to join, seeming to fortify himself in very
savage vengeance.
" A fowl was put into his hands; a head he took in
one hand, and the legs in the other, and tore the head
from the body, immediately thrusting the neck into his
mouth, sucked out the blood, and wrung the neck off
with his teeth, while the blood streamed down to the
ground, My soul so sickened at this, that it was with
difficulty I restrained myself.
" The man continued his incantations, and when we
saw that it was availless to interfere, we all knelt down
within a few yards of the worshippers, and offered fervent
prayers in their behalf, and left testifying, and warning
them to flee from the wrath to come.' "

PA SAMBA (a Moorie man) is another illustration of
the wild nonsense which obtains amongst those from
whom, from long and continued association with Euro-
peans, better might be expected.
I permitted Pa Samba, a poor Moorie, to occupy a
cellar in my house at Freetown, leaving his cuisine and
upholstery arrangements to his own ways, means, and
taste. He instantly commenced constructing his bed by
mixing and flattening a couch of mud, with pillow of the
same material (which, from the frequency of its applica-
tion for such purposes, was called by a merry Hibernian
friend "African feathers.") His grate was three stones,
and a white hen and chickens, objects of devoted solici-
tude, cackled and chirped about. Upon the wall hung a
snake' skin (condah), and by its side a fox tail. He
was a Foulah, and received a pension for services, real or
imaginary, in Gambia, in times long past ; yet poor
Samba could not make ends meet, and was often, like his
betters, until quarter-day came round, upon the round
himself, looking for tick—not that be might stuff his
feaghera into it, but that he might stuff himself with it ;
but when her. Malesi?..B _lOO was p‘laeed,,itv_his _band;
being conveniently blessed with a non ms recordo'
memory, he did not make as honourable use of that sove-
' reign remedy as her Majesty anticipated, but the apology
for his tenacity was so right royal, and right loyal, that his
two or three shilling creditors seldom introduced him to
the sheriff—" Ha, massa, me lub her Majesty too much
to part with her pictur. Garramighty bless her !" How.
ever, creditors, like fathers, sometimes " have flinty
hearts," and Samba found himself summoned to the netit
debt court ; but be had a soul above terror at debts or
courts, duns cor devils, for be had a charm—his condah
and fox's brush, with which be could sweep the debt out
of the summoner's memory. This belief was strengthened
by his having been allowed to escape so long, which he
attributed to the magical charming of his skin and tail,
but having been at length cast in debt and costs, be tore
his tail and destroyed his skin, in the greatest rage,
swearing that the one was grown too old and the other
too dry, and that he must find others more juvenile and
moist, when he might again defy the enemy. About the
same time, as " misfortunes come in battalions," Pa lost
his white hen, and his suspicion having fallen upon a
neighbouring woman of colour, he ran into the street in
the midst of a dreadful tornado, uttering the most awful
imprecations, and, praying that the wind and lightning
might bury her in her house. Whilst in the culminating
point of his vengeance, the fowl walked leisurely home,
but died the next day, as Samba averred, from having got
a cough in the storm, owing to the loss of his skin and
tail. Fortunately for the woman, the coroner did not
hold an inquest, which saved her from a foul verdict.
This character pretended to be a rigid Mahomedan,
kept fasts, prayed, and knocked his bead against the
ground, upon all occasions, night and day, and kept, as
far as I could discern, the Rhamadan Month, of fasting
from sunrise unto his going down; and it was amusing to
see him eagerly watch its setting in the horizon, when
immediately upon the last glimpse, he would pounce
upon his meal, like a lion on its prey, stroke his beard,
Lnd utter a short sentence from the Alcoran.

Sometimes I amused myself with catechising him on
his religion, but not being a very aeep theologian myself,
I could not convince him of his errors to such an extent
as I desired. He knew some of the Mosaic Law, and
spoke of Adam, whom he called 13emma. Nothing could
shake his belief in sadakah, (sacrifice ;) and if he is now
dead, I am sure that he expired like a true Mahomedan,
exclaiming " Alla, Alla, Bismillah"—" There is but one
God, and Mahomet is his Prophet !"—and that he has
met his brother Moorie man in the other world with the
usual salutation, " Saalatn Aleik ?" " Aleik Saalam.'
'• How do ?" " Very well, tank'ee." At length his
nocturnal vociferations, singing, and prayers, with noisy
quotations from the Koran, together with the loss of a
pair of Wellington boots, which I certainly di 3 not steal
from myself, suggested the propriety of giving this reli-
gionist a hint that he might look out for more comfort-