3-065-608 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Ashantee War: shipping bullocks at Sierra Leone for Cape Coast Castle - from a sketch by our special artist, 1874. 'The sketch was made during the stay of the mail-steamer Volta at that port, on the voyage to Cape Coast Castle. A number of cattle were purchased and put on board the steamer at Sierra Leone. They were fat and in good condition, but the mode of hoisting the bullocks on deck appears strange and cruel. It is performed by fixing a leather strap about the horns of the beast and attaching it to the tackle of the steam-winch. By this means, after some distressing jerks and tugs, the poor animal is lifted up bodily, and raised over the ship's side. Its agony of fright and pain seems to be great fun in the eyes of the negro helpers or loungers, who take it easily, and wear as little clothing as possible, even on board "him white man big canoe." These black fellows have assumed the oddest names, such as "Tom Pepper," "Bottle o' Beer," "Poor Fellar," "Never Sweat," "Hungry Belly," "Baw Bones," and others invented by the sailors for them, but sometimes unfit for ears polite'. From "Illustrated London News", 1874.