Note 33 — Chapter IX · (continued 2)

Wood is seldom found to be desirable for building in a hot country, from the numerous ants and other insects that assail it, particularly where the changes are so frequent from very dry to very moist weather, if we had had time, it would have been much better to have erected our buildings with brick or stone. There is, indeed, plenty of fine clay for the former; but building stones are scarce in that neighbourhood, and we had not sufficient lime,—as we had to procure burnt lime from Sierra Leone, or shells from Accra, both of which we obtained for the building of an armourer's shop and a bakehouse. Indeed, we were obliged to use the utmost exertion to get any thing erected to shelter the Europeans and African soldiers, before the rainy season set in. As for the African mechanics and labourers, they built their own huts, in certain lines, that we called streets.