to see what were the goods inside, and should they be Ju-Ju would not open them, but take them to their particular friend amongst the European traders, and get him to send them away to some other river for sale on joint account.
Every eighth day is called Calabar Sunday, the day following being formerly the market day or principal receiving day for the white traders of the native produce, which consisted principally, and still does, of palm oil. The native Sunday was passed in olden days by the chief in receiving visits from the white men and jamming[1] with them for any produce he had the intention of selling the following day, or clearing up any little Ju-Ju matters that he had been putting off for the want of a slack day, not because it was his Sunday, but because that was a day on which by custom he could not visit the ships. I remember it was on paying a visit to old King Amachree, the father of the late king of the same name, I saw for the first time a native sacrifice. I was then little more than a boy as a matter of fact, I was under seventeen years of age, but filling a man's place in New Calabar who had been invalided home. The old king had taken me under his special protection and gave me much good advice and counsel, which was of great use to me in my novel position. My employers ought to have been very thankful to him, for though I was the youngest trader in the river by some twelve years, I held my own with them and got a larger share of the produce of the river than my predecessor had done, all owing to the old brick of a king, who would come and see how I was doing on the big trade days, and if he thought I was not doing as well as my neighbours he would
- ↑ Jamming, a trade term, meaning making an agreement to buy or sell anything at an agreed price.
