'Time is a sort of the Alligator River of passing events' | Fantasy History 20


Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away. –Marcus Aurelius


Four miles up the estuary, there is a succession of charming bays and creeks, their shores covered with dense foliage from the water's edge up to the hills,  which rise at the back to a height of 1800 feet, and beyond them towers the Sugarloaf, attaining to upwards of 2500 feet above sea level. (Royal Geographical Society, March 14, 1892)




A Revised Edition of the Ordinances of the Colony of Sierra Leone: Volume 1 Sierra Leone  (1st November 1908)

The old government wharf was constructed in 1867, and in 1896, the Protectorate of Sierra Leone was established by ordinance. 


The Colony of Sierra Leone's West Ward–first section–comprises the area within a line, which starts from the junction of Upper Brook Street and Westmoreland Street, and passes along Sanders Street to its junction with Priscilla Street, then along Priscilla Street to Alligator Brook, then along Alligator Brook to the bank of the Sierra Leone River, then along the said bank to the mouth of Sanders Brook and then up Sanders Brook until the said line reaches the starting point. 

The second section passes along Priscilla Street till it meets Alligator River, then up the said brook to the crossing with Morgan Street, then along  Morgan and Sanders streets to the junction of Sanders Street with Campbell Street.

The West Ward–sixth section–comprises the area within a line which starts at a point on Alligator River where it is crossed by Mereweather Road, then a westerly direction along the Mereweather Road to its junction with King-Harman Road. then due west along the footpath to Cantonment Road to the right bank of the Congo River to its junction with the Freetown Water Works reservation boundary until its junction with Alligator River.

Known as the Alligator River above its small estuary, the lower Sanders Brook and Mountain Torrent (Granville Brook in its lower reaches) have incised their valleys. It is not certain when the rejuvenation was initiated, perhaps during the Pliocene. It was sufficiently long ago, probably 5.333 million to 2.58 million years 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vitabu features the memorable sixth chapter of Bakar Mansaray's new book

Image
Bakar Mansaray, the founder of the Mandingo Scrolls blog and winner of the 2017 Writer-of-the-Year, Afro-Canadian Heroes Award, is known for his riveting short stories and tales of life in his native Sierra Leone. In his new book, My Afro-Canadian Chronicle , published by Sierra Leonean Writers Series, the author sheds a personal light on the devastating effects of underdevelopment on a country that went through one of the most atrocious civil wars in modern history. "For those who have read books of literature, history and anthropology from Sierra Leone and yet harbour the sinking feeling that there had to be a missing link between narratives, Bakar’s book provides that missing link to complete the national narrative," writes novelist and poet Oumar Farouk Sesay in the Foreword. "This autobiography is a portrait painted on a canvas of memory in vivid and sometimes dark hues, telling a story only a mind as lucid as the author’s can tell. This excerpt was used wi
Read more

Summer hangout with Pede Hollist's So the Path Does Not Die

Image
Pede Hollist, a native of Sierra Leone, is an associate professor of English at The University of Tampa, Florida. His interests cover the literature of the African imagination—literary expressions in the African continent as well as in the African Diaspora. So the Path Does not Die is his first novel.  His short story "‘Foreign Aid" was on the shortlist for the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing. Vitabu : I found So the Path Does Not Die a remarkable book. The story travels from a graphic, mystical past to the present time, through almost impossible and sometimes hidden cultural, social and economic issues. How did you come up with the idea for the Musudugu chaper? Pede Hollist: Among the Kuranko, Musudugu refers to a woman’s dwelling, but it also describes a mythical place where only women lived, happily and in sisterhood.  The story of Kumba Kargbo’s confrontation with the elders of Musudugu suggests that the conflict between old and new ways and the tension betw
Read more

Susan's Bay, Freetown, Sierra Leone

Image
An undated aerial photo of Susan's Bay, Freetown by Wallin Eleazar Riebel of Otterbein University. The postcard was digitized in March 2006 and the digital publisher is the Otterbein University Library. The original photo is stored in the repository of the Otterbein University Library Archives. Postcard captioned, "Susan's Bay, Sierra Leone." Aerial view, looking inland. ( Susan's Bay, Freetown, Sierra Leone ) On Wednesday, March 24, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr Mayor of Freetown wrote on Facebook :  "J ust left the scene of a terrible fire at Susan’s Bay. The entire community has been burnt to the ground. Thousands are affected. We won’t know the full scale of the disaster until tomorrow when we conduct an assessment with NDMA and other partners. Many children are missing, separated from their parents in the chaos. Twelve children were at the FSU at Eastern Police station. We understand that other children might have boarded boats moored on the wharf. Devastating to w
Read more