TRADING IN THE CAMEROONS
Each ship in those days had what was then called a cask house, that was a piece of land as nearly opposite as possible to where the ship lay moored. This land was always kept fenced round with young mangrove props or sticks, forming a compound; inside this compound would be two, perhaps three, fairly good sized stores or warehouses, and also an open shed for empty casks which had to be filled with palm oil and stowed in the ship for the homeward voyage. Now the first work to be done after the ship was made ready for trading, was to land as much of her cargo as was not immediately required for trading purposes, such as salt, caskage, earthenware, and all heavy goods. Salt in those days, as in the present, formed one of the staple articles of trade, therefore a ship would generally have from 200 to 300 tons of this on board, all of which would have to be landed into one of these store houses. At that time that meant a lot of labour, as every pound had to be carried by the natives from the boats to the store in baskets upon the head, over a long flat beach. To-day all this is altered, the salt is sent out in bags, and each store has a good iron wharf running out into the river with trolly lines laid upon it, which runs the goods right into the store, and so saves an immense amount of labour. After the salt came the casks, packed in what are called shooks; that is, the cask when emptied at home here, is knocked down and made into a small close package and in that condition only taking up an eighth part of the room it would take when filled with the palm oil, thus enabling the ship to carry, in addition to her cargo, enough casks to fill her up again completely
