Many years ago the Monrovian Government sent one Bosambo, a native of the Kroo coast and consequently a thief, to penal servitude for the term of his natural life. Bosambo, who had other views on the matter, was given an axe and a saw in the penal settlement—which was a patch of wild forest in the back country—and told to cut down and trim certain mahogany-trees in company with other unfortunate men similarly circumstanced.