“...Oh, cheerily, cheerily! is the anchor-song, morning, noon, and night in the great docks where the vessels from the coast of Africa lie, which have come home laden with gold-dust, and palm-oil, and elephants' teeth, and which are off again, ere many days, with huge packages of Birmingham hardware and Manchester goods, coral necklaces, and gimcrack ornaments for Mumbo Jumbo and Ashantee fetishes, slop rifles and cutlasses for the King of Dahomey's amazons….”
[Cheerily, Cheerily!, Gaslight and Daylight, Sala, 1859]
George Augustus Sala (1828 – 1895)


“Throwing the reins of fancy free, and looking forward a few years, stately dwellings shall crown these hill tops; and, by one standing upon the sloping terrace, or sitting within the lofty corridor, shall be heard the hum of industry as it comes up from the east and from the west, and unites with the merry “ho, heave, ho,” of the mariner, as he unlades at your wharf the products of the nearer islands, the rich fabrics of India, and the spices of Borneo and Sumatra.”
[The Norwich Jubilee, Stedman ed.,1859]