Page:The land of fetish.pdf/168

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

the Waterloo creek and Ribbi river, which separate it from Timmanee country. The Timmanees periodically commit outrages on British subjects, and small wars ensue. These wars are, however, almost invariably bloodless; as the natives, on the approach of a disciplined force, at once evacuate their towns and take refuge in the forest. The towns are then destroyed and the troops and police return to Freetown, to wait until the natives have repaired the damage done, and begin their pillaging and murdering afresh.

In 1880 the Timmanees, who had been quiet for some time, began making disturbances; and the inhabitants of the village of Waterloo could not leave their homes without being murdered, or, at all events, fired upon. A handful of men was accordingly sent out from the garrison of Freetown, a few Timmanee villages burned, and order restored. During this small campaign a surgeon who accompanied the force committed a most unheard-of outrage. The bodies of a number of friendly natives, who had been killed by the Timmanees, had been placed in a pit, but not covered with earth, in order that the officers who were sent to restore order might actually see what the Timmanees had done. Upon this pit, about a week after the corpses had been placed in it, the surgeon