Abeokuta and the Camaroons Mountains, Vol. 2 (of 2)

[Illustration: THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS.

_Frontispiece_, vol. ii.]

Abeokuta And The Camaroons Mountains.

An Exploration.

BY RICHARD F. BURTON, VICE PRES. ANTHROP. SOC. OF LONDON; GOLD MEDALLIST, GEOG. SOCS., PARIS AND LONDON; F.R.G.S. LONDON; M.A.S.; M.A.S. BOMBAY; M. ETHNO. S. LONDON.

“Geography, though an earthly study, is a heavenly subject.”—_Burke._

_In Two Volumes._

Vol. II.

London: Tinsley Brothers, 18 Catherine Street, Strand. 1863.

[_The right of Translation is reserved._]

London: Printed By W. Clowes And Sons, Stamford Street And Charing Cross.

Contents.

* * * * *

Chapter IX.

Page

Diplomacy; Departure, And Return To Lagos 1

The Camaroons Mountains.

Chapter I.

Preliminaries Of Exploration 25

Chapter II.

We Encamp At ‘Mann’S Spring’ 75

Chapter III.

First Ascent Of Pico Grande 133

Chapter IV.

Subsequent Ascents By Messrs. Calvo, Saker, And Mann 162

Chapter V.

The Final Ascent 182

Chapter VI.

Return To Fernando Po 218

Appendices.

I. Mr. Grazilhier’S Description Of The Ambozes Country 235

II. Mr. Merrick’S Tour In West Africa 238

III. FLORA OF THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS, OF CLARENCE PEAK, FERNANDO PO, AND OF THE PEAK OF SAN THOMÉ 270

IV. Notes On The Fauna Of The Camaroons Mountains 278

V. Reports And Letters Touching Ambas Bay 286

VI. Meteorological Observations 294

VII. Hypsometrical Table 303

[Illustration: THE CAMAROONS MOUNTAINS

_London, Tinsley, Brothers, Catherine Street._]

Abeokuta And The Camaroons Mountains.

* * * * *

Chapter IX.

Diplomacy; Departure, And Return To Lagos.

‘The Captain’ advanced swimmingly in his diplomatic movements, much to his own satisfaction. But this is a race equally regardless of the past and reckless of the future, with whom the present is ever all in all, and actual life the ‘be-all and end-all of all things:’ their brains are in matters of novelty marble to receive and wax to retain: nothing, if to be permanent, can be done in a hurry, or, rather, without a long delay: they forget all that has not been impressed upon them by many repetitions, and they regard what Englishmen call a ‘business-like manner’ with a supreme contempt. ‘He does half who does quickly,’ should be the Anglo-African’s rule.

Wednesday was a holiday; Thursday had its work. About 10·30 A.M. we proceeded to the ‘palace,’ where we were to be honoured with a private interview. This time we came ‘in mufti’ as friendly visitors; the demands of dignity had been satisfied; it was no longer necessary to keep us waiting or to send us back. Passing, as before, under the main entrance into the great patio, we entered the smaller and interior court, and sat down in the verandah where former audiences had been held. The hangings and draperies having been removed, we saw certain daubs like hatchments on the walls, placed to show where the Alake’s father and mother reposed: they were apparently intended for the human form divine, but they were too blurred and smoked to be readily distinguished. After sitting for a short time we were summoned into the interior. We dived under the verandah, and after a moment of _demi-jour_ we emerged into a room where the Alake was waiting to receive us.

The room was a complete Roman atrium—a style of architecture for which I can assign no reason in these climates. The hypæthral portion, where the mid-ceiling might be expected, was garnished with a large inverted cone of mat and thatch, which would direct the rain into the rude impluvium, a parallelogram sunk in the clay. Beneath it various doors opened into other minor rooms, and the walls were painted with the usual mixture of horse or cow dung and indigo. Above the great man’s place were hung ten Tower muskets, and a leopard’s skin so pale and pink that it might be mistaken for an ounce’s.

The Alake lay upon a plain carpet in an alcove at the head of the room, and four scattered feathers dangling to a bit of twine above him appeared to be his protecting fetish. There were no hangings, and his elbow rested upon a common bolster. He was more plainly and comfortably attired than usual, in a red fez without beads, with blue and red chequered cloths round his middle, the rest of the body being exposed to the abebe, or hide-fans of his wives. Besides the interpreters, four chiefs were present, namely, the two Akpesi, a stout personage called Okolomo, and a gray senior, the Lemo of the Ikporo township—each dirty little village has here its own dignitaries, and the number of titles seems endless. The great men, such as Somoye the Ibashorun, Osho the Oja’a or General, and Akodu the Balogun, were at the camp: these dignitaries, when not consulted upon public measures, especially foreign affairs, can, and probably will, object to everything done without their leave. The principal ministers—the ‘setters up and pullers down of kings,’—such as Ogubonna, Shokeno, and Ogushaye the Anaba, are, alas! no more.

The conference was manifestly intended to be private—for a good reason, it might afterwards, when necessary, be ignored. It began with much mystery, and all who entered were dismissed with some indignity. Presently, however, it was gradually broken into by women, children, and confidential slaves. It reminded me of the confabulations of the Sindh Ameers, who on such occasions of _haute politique_ stationed guards round their council-chamber to keep off eaves-droppers, and soon becoming excited, bawled so loud that they could be heard a mile off.

The talkee-talkee lasted about two hours. When the palaver flagged a deal table was brought in, and Abeokuta Williams, the pedagogue, indited, under dictation, a letter of apology to the acting governor of Lagos. The new treaty was then copied out in triplicate and signed with all formality. Commander Bedingfield wrote the names and marks, whilst the Alake and the two Akpesi, grinning as if on a funny occasion—were I in their waist-cloths no grin would have come from me—touched the pen’s end with the finger tip, and thereby legalized an instrument couched as follows:—

Treaty.

‘In consequence of the representations of Commander Norman B. Bedingfield, R.N., Senior Officer of the Bights Division of H.M.’s ships, the Alake and the chiefs of Ake express their regret that there should have been occasion for the complaint of their want of faith in keeping the treaty made between them and H.M.’s Government by Capt. Forbes in 1852.[1]

‘They now solemnly declare that the three articles mentioned below, and to which they have now affixed their names, shall be strictly enforced for the future, and be at once made public.

‘1st. With a view of strictly enforcing the 1st Article of the above- mentioned treaty, the Alake and chiefs hereby promise to stop the roads leading to Okeadon and other places by which slaves are sent to the coast for exportation against such export as far as it is in their power; and they will also punish severely any of their own people against whom it can be proved that they have broken this law.

‘2nd. The Alake and chiefs also solemnly declare that now and after this date no human being shall be sacrificed either by them, their people, or others inside or outside the walls of the town, or anywhere else in their territory.

‘3rd. It having been fully explained to the Alake and chiefs by Commander Bedingfield the injury caused to legal commerce by shutting the road between Lagos and Abeokuta, out of friendship to the Queen of England they are willing to promise that this road shall never again be stopped on any pretext whatever, without the consent and approval of H.M.’s Governor at Lagos: provided always, that when it is deemed expedient to prevent the Egbas from going to Lagos, the merchants must provide themselves with canoe men from that place.

‘Signed at the King’s Palace, this seventh day of November, 1861.

his (Signed) ‘THE + ALAKE. mark.

his (Signed) ‘APESI + KEMETA. mark.

his (Signed) ‘LEMO + TROCU. mark.

his (Signed) ‘APESI + ERUNOON. mark.

his (Signed) ‘OKOLOMO + mark.

(Signed) ‘NORMAN B. BEDINGFIELD, Commander, R.N., Senior Officer for the Bights Division of H.M.’s Ships.

(Signed) ‘RICHARD F. BURTON, Captain, H.B.M.’s Consul, Fernando Po.

(Signed) ‘HENRY EALES, Surgeon, H.M.’s Ship “Prometheus.”

(Signed) ‘DAVID WILLIAMS, acting as Secretary to the Alake, witness to the above signatures.

(Signed) ‘S. WILLIAMS, Interpreter.’

It would hardly be believed that within the week after our return to Lagos a letter was received from Abeokuta confessing that a human sacrifice had taken place in broad daylight, and that some women had been kidnapped from the house of a Mr. King. The reason of the Alake and chiefs reporting these breaches of faith was their conviction that the news would go abroad, and the transaction be discovered, if not communicated by themselves. The misdeeds were not punished. The fact is, the subjects are too powerful for the sovereign.

[_Note._—The following is a copy of the original treaty concluded with the chief of the Egba nation, 5th Jan. 1852, and abridged from ‘Hertslet’s Commercial Treaties,’ vol. ix.:—

Frederick Edwyn Forbes, Esq., Additional Commander of H.M.S. ‘Penelope,’ on the part of Her Majesty the Queen of England, to the chiefs of the Egba nation and of the neighbourhood, on the part of themselves and of their country have agreed upon the following Articles and Conditions:—

I. Prohibits export of slaves to foreign countries under severe punishment.

II. No slave-traders to reside in territory of the king or chiefs of Lagos, and no buildings to be erected for the purpose of slave-trade; with permission to British officers to destroy such if the king consents.

III. Boats engaged in such slave-trade may be seized by British officers.

IV. Slaves for exportation shall be delivered to British for conveyance to British colonies, where they shall be liberated.

V. European slave treaty to be respected, and slave factories if not converted to lawful purposes within three months to be destroyed.

VI. British subjects may buy and sell throughout dominions, and have favours and privileges of most favoured nation.

VII. _Abolishes human sacrifices for religious purposes_, and prisoners taken in war not to be murdered.

VIII. Affords complete protection to missionaries; allows houses, schools, and chapels to be built by missionaries or ministers, and sets apart places of sepulture.

IX. Power reserved to French Government to become party to the treaty, agreeably with provisions contained in Art. V. of the convention between Her Majesty and the King of the French for the suppression of the traffic in slaves, signed at London, May 29, 1845.

In faith of which we have hereunto set our hands and seals at Abe, 5 Jan. 1852.

(L. S.) F. E. Forbes,

Sagbua. Obasaron. Ogubonna. Sikeno.

_Presidents of Abeokuta, or the Egba race._

TAMBALA, _Bulagon of Ikerehu._ AKIONME _for_ ARROBA, _Egba Agorra._

IMEMUNU, _Owu._ LAGEMO, _Owe_.

Supplementary Treaty.

ART. I. That Sierra Leone emigrants, natives of whatsoever country, are not allowed to be kidnapped.

ART. II. That we will not attempt to hinder the advance of missionaries, merchants, or others into the interior.

In faith of which we have hereunto set our hands and seals at Abe, 5 Jan. 1852.

Signed and sealed by the same parties.]

We then took formal leave. I can scarcely, however, quote on this occasion,

‘Such partings break the heart they fondly hope to heal.’

In good sooth we all seemed heartily glad to get rid of one other and of the whole business. In return for some little presents the Alake presented ‘the captain’ with a horse, which was supposed to be rather a superior animal. It was afterwards taken to Lagos, and sold. With due deference to superior judgment, I cannot but think that this part of the proceedings was a complete mistake. A present of provisions from an African chief or king must often be received, as its rejection would be deemed an insult, and an equivalent is easily sent back. But the rule which applies to all gifts of horses, arms, and jewellery in India ought equally to be carried out at the native courts in this part of the world. And, at all events, the sale of such present would be looked upon, not as a slight to the donor, but as a mark of bad breeding in the donee.

We had entered Abeokuta on Friday, the 1st, and Friday, the 8th of November, 1861, was to witness our departure—bad days both. The captain had, or fondly supposed that he had, succeeded in the principal objects of his mission, the three points of the new treaty, viz., the opening to Lagos of the Ogun River—which presently became tightly closed; the cessation of human sacrifice—which will not cease till the ‘screw’ is ‘turned on’ much more tightly; and, lastly, the abolition of the export slave trade—which requires to rest upon a much stronger basis than the mere marks of a petty barbarian prince and his chiefs.

‘_L’homme sensible en voyage_,’ says M. Boiste, ‘_est tenté de s’arrêter chez les premières bonnes gens qu’il trouve: chaque départ lui devient un supplice_.’ This was not quite our case, for Abeokuta was becoming of an almost intolerable dulness: we took regretful leave, however, of our hospitable entertainers. At 9 A.M. Commander Bedingfield and I walked—without cavalcade—to the Aro Gate, accompanied by Mr. Hughes, and closely followed by Mr. Eales and Messrs. Harrison and Wike. The luggage had been sent down in the morning, and the first and second gigs had been drawn up from midstream, where they had anchored, to the landing- place. A wild beast of a Yoruba pony charged down upon me, and the umbrella with which the attack was received nearly put my eye out: considering, however, that it was Friday, I congratulated myself upon a very pretty escape. A final libation to Bacchus was poured out, and after another shaking of hands we found ourselves once more upon the broad bosom of Father Ogun.

The stream is essentially a rain river, filling gradually and uniformly, without freshets. During the last week, though there had been three heavy down falls, it had sunk several inches, a sure sign that the ‘dries’ were setting in. The deeper pools were like the beads of a chaplet connected by a thread of shallows, and the boat, though drawing barely a foot, touched bottom on each middle ground as we crossed the sandbanks joining the salient and the re-entering angles. Almost within sight of Aro we shot a little rapid, a clear way in a ridge of rocks, which seemed to rise under both bows. At 11·30 A.M. we dropped past Agbameya, the lower port or landing-place of Abeokuta: the ferry, where people are sometimes drowned, was in full activity, and the market-wives left their blies and baskets of maize and manioc, kankie and fufu, to stare at the departing strangers. Another hour, and we were alongside of Moroko, where on the up voyage we had halted for a pleasant breakfast. Another brought us to Takpana, where the naked nigger boys would bathe with their mammas and sisters, who apparently do not believe that

‘The chariest maid is prodigal enough

If she disclose her beauties to the moon.’

Our Krumen found it necessary to lie upon their oars, and to ‘chop water’ every half-hour, which rendered progress slow. Down-stream, however, was very different ‘challing’ from up-stream. We reached Baragu about 7·30 P.M.; it was black dark, and the number of cross ropes rendered the navigation of the river peculiarly troublesome after the short twilight had been extinguished by the gloom.

We spent a right merry evening at Baragu, where the head-man cleared out for us the verandah of a large fetish-house, which showed through the bamboo walls the usual number of ugly little dolls, enshrined in a large bare room. The Baraguans, however, must be a somewhat bigoted race. They would not allow us to set foot within the sanctuary, an unpleasant contrast with the Rationalists of Mabban. The male population squatted round to see ‘the captain’s’ hammock-lines made taut, and the fairer sex, which still displayed the _vis superba formæ_—in figure, not in face—formed an outer ring. A drum soon made its appearance, and after we had passed round a social glass of toast, rum, and gin, the merriment waxed fast and furious. There was singing, feasting, and dancing; in fact, quite an African ‘swarry,’ only lacking the mutton and caper sauce. Our hosts were perfectly civil and obliging, and so were our hostesses—rather too much so I could prove, if privileged to whisper into the reader’s ear. But what would Mrs. Grundy say? The night was soft and balmy; after the reeking sunny day, we enjoyed the refreshing season of rest, and the verandah floor, though not without knots, was more satisfactory than a feather bed in the best bedroom of ——. Upon the whole, our trip was decidedly ‘jolly.’

On Saturday, the 9th, we arose betimes, and left Baragu at 5·30 A.M., before any of the revellers were awake: these people have the good sense to sleep as long as they can. The river-fog was as dense and clammy as ever; the snags were numerous; so were the ropes, and we were obliged to row carefully for fear of an upset. About sunrise we halted for a few minutes at Illugu, where the ill-fated Sancho (pronounced Sanco) had strayed from his mourning owner. The Krumen went up to the village, and inquired concerning that amiable but mangy animal—in vain; our pleasant companion had probably found a living grave in the bread-basket of some hard-iliac’d Illaguan—the canine _salmi_ is relished by these races—and we left the fatal spot with spirits sadly depressed.

Halting for breakfast at Igaon, we had the satisfaction of finding Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in the very best of health. The head-man brought us a fowl, for which he demanded rum or a head of cowries; he then begged for something to eat, and was told that it was his duty to take in, not to let in the stranger. He was also warned that sundry complaints against him had been sent to Lagos, and that he must no longer levy ‘black mail’ upon travellers and canoe-men going up the river. Our stay was short; the rum was ended, and the claret running very low; we were naturally anxious to arrive at a place of plenty—Lagos. There is one advantage in these excursions. Although the _jeunesse dorée_ of Abeokuta looks upon that sea-port much as the English young woman from the country-house regards the season and the great matrimonial bazar of London, I had hitherto held it to be the last and lowest of created places, save and except only Fernando Po. Twelve days of sweltering at ‘Understone’ had so modified my views, that it now rose before the mental eye as the home of comfort and luxury. Thus Saadi’s philosopher cured his slave of howling with terror in the boat by throwing him for a few minutes into the sea.

We left Igaon at 8·40 A.M., and after passing sundry settlements, which were not exactly like

‘Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,’

we halted off the mouth of the Agboi Creek to await Mr. Eales in the second gig. Commander Bedingfield and I determined to inspect the longer route, _viâ_ the main stream, and the ‘doctor’ was equally resolved to reach head-quarters with the least possible delay.

At 10·30 A.M. we parted, and struck in the first gig down the lower Ogun. It rapidly narrowed, and in places widened out again. The banks on both sides were thickly forested, and we judged from the number of the paths abutting upon the water that many villages must be scattered through the bush. The river appeared, however, almost deserted; hardly a canoe was upon its waters, and the windings at times threatened a return to ‘Understone.’ The fishing-ropes also were many and troublesome; being thinner than those in the upper stream, they more than once unshipped our rudder. About half-way we passed on the right a wretched fishing- village—six huts, mere wattlings, thatched with palm-leaves, raised on piles above the inundation, redolent of squalor, and surrounded by filth and fetid mud. We asked its name, and were told ‘Ojogu.’

Advancing, we found that as we neared the mouth the river narrowed. Such is frequently the case in these regions, where the beds of streams want slope, and where the soppy ground, half-reclaimed from the waves, absorbs the greater part of the down-flow. For the reverse reason, the head or upper waters are, for the most part, mill-torrents. We were fortunate enough to meet a canoe at a critical point where the Ogun falls; the left appeared to be the larger branch, but it terminated in a _cul de sac_. Taking the right, we bade leave to forest trees, in which the long-tailed monkeys were disporting themselves, ascending the topmost boughs for the benefit of their health, and cautiously and curiously walking along the horizontal branches, to enjoy, as we went by, a better reconnoitre of their ‘big brothers.’ Presently we entered the mangrove forest, whose aërial roots, a conework of props converging where the trunk springs, must often have been upwards of fifteen feet high; it is not improbable that they suggested to the first African the idea of the first hut. In some places, especially at the bifurcation of the river, the trees were so high and thick that they suggested the idea of a raised bank—a frequent formation near the courses of West African creeks and rivers. It is probably caused by the vegetation being based upon a firmer soil, not upon the soft mud in which the smaller and more scrubby mangrove delights.

We came to the conclusion that the line of the main river was considerably longer than that of the Agboi Creek, and the eastern sweep of the former, compared with the regular northing of the latter, justified it. Presently the mangroves lessened in size, and the stream narrowed to a few yards: it was so thickly banked with tall, light-green grasses and aquatic plants that the oars could hardly work, and we anticipated the pleasing task of turning back. A short furlong, however, exposed the broad and well-known face of the Ikoradu water, which we greeted as if it had been a firm friend, instead of a fierce enemy, to the white man. According to all local authorities, Father Ogun, until quite lately, boasted of a broad and open mouth, such as becomes a sacred stream; of late years it has apparently been blocked up by its own growth. This must greatly reduce its value; none but the smallest of river tugs could plough a way through the tangled entrance; and thus communication on an extensive scale between Lagos and Abeokuta will be confined to canoes, roads, tramways, and eventually the rail.

Exactly at noon we found ourselves in the lagoon. The coast here forms a deep, narrow bight, with a comparatively high and a densely-wooded point, extending far out on each side. To our left, or westward, lay the market-place or bazar, where the bushfolk and the citizens of Ikoradu meet every eight days. There were a few tattered huts, all at that time deserted. They are about half an hour’s walk from the town. The way is a deep rut in the red clay, forming during the rains a rivulet unmanageable to any nag but a Yoruban, and at all times tiresome to English feet and ankles. The land is a mass of impenetrable vegetation, where no umbrella is wanted till within a few yards of the habitations. On a subsequent occasion I visited it with Mr. M‘Coskry, and found it to be the normal Yoruba settlement, girt with clay wall and dry ditch, and gates like bungalows for the accommodation of the guards. The interior was a _rus in urbe_, containing much more jungle than house. The only semi-civilized being seemed to be a native teacher stationed there for propagandist purposes. Formerly it was committed to the charge of M. Flad, a German missionary. The people were by no means startled by the weird apparition—and none but the smallboys showed emotion—and we were allowed to saunter into and about the open Ogboni lodge, whose inmates we inspected with that nonchalant stare peculiar to Britons and to the higher order of savages. ‘Produce me,’ said Mr. Jollins, ‘a respectable inhabitant of an English country town, and I will match him in the matter of solid and silent staring against any man over the whole surface of the world.’ On another and a subsequent occasion, however, the burghers of Ikoradu town were not so civil to a party of more dignified visitors, and if rumour speak truth, their town somewhat narrowly escaped a summary bombardment.

Return we to the first gig, which was in no pleasant plight, as she emerged from the embrace of Father Ogun. The sea-breeze blew steadily in our faces, and the tide ran strong against us. We were still seven miles from Lagos, and our progress was painfully slow, chiefly owing, said ‘the captain,’ to the size and the obstinacy of my umbrella. As we progressed, a new appearance was noticed in the water, which was verdant with a substance apparently floating up with the tide. The material was disposed in clots, lumps, and balls, varying in size from a pin’s head to a grape-shot, which when taken in the hand, proved to be slimy and soft, like agglomerations of decayed vegetable matter. We afterwards found the beach at Lagos pea-green with several inches of the deposit, which, after drying in the sun, emitted a most peculiar and offensive odour.[2] The thermometer showed 6° (Fah.) higher than usual, and the sea breeze, which usually sets in at 11 A.M., delayed till the afternoon: there was no change in the barometer. The deposit was first remarked on November 8th, and the merchants lost no time in removing it from their ‘beaches.’ The old hands, however, began to presage evil, and their predictions were accomplished but too well. Out of ninety-eight English crew, H.M.S. ‘Prometheus’ had lost during twenty-three months only two men from fever, and during the last third of the year, when she had been lying off Lagos, exposed to all its evil influences, there was only one decidedly febrile case on board. But these climates are treacherous beyond description. Immediately after the appearance above noticed, the sick began to flock in apace; we heard first of one death, then a second,—whilst twelve bad cases were reported. Before the end of December there were one hundred and seven fevers, intermittent, remittent, and continued: between 14th of November and December 3rd, no less than forty-eight were on the sick list. Finally, after a few weeks, except one old quartermaster there was not a ‘Promethean’ who had not had fever; and it was only by removal to Ascension Island, where fifty- seven men were sent, that the lives of the crew were saved.

At 1 P.M. we sighted the second gig emerging from the Agboi creek. We flattered ourselves that her course would be a hypothenuse, and much we prayed that she might ground or stick; but Jupiter turned a deaf ear—she beat us by a good half-hour. Doubtless that umbrella! Our Krumen were urged to exertion by an awful-looking cloud, a purple black pall, with a broad, white arch, that seemed to open a gateway for the coming blasts, and the mass rose steadily against the wind, which presently fell to a calm. At 5 P.M. we landed, after twelve days’ absence, at Lagos, somewhat wiser if not better men. After passing—

‘Per varios casus, per tot discrimina rerum—’

all on a very small scale, I reinstated myself with a lively sensation of pleasure in the old quarters at the house of my kind and hospitable friend, M‘Coskry, where it was easy to forget the minute discomforts and inconveniences of our Flying Visit to Abeokuta.

L’Envoi.

Yoruba, as the list of its trade articles proves, may in time become a valuable possession, and its sole important port, Lagos, is now in our hands. The seaboard will supply large quantities of palm oil; the interior is rich in shea butter, ivory, and, if due encouragement be given, a certain amount of cotton. The gossipium, even wild, is, and I believe always will be, better than the best crop ever grown in India. The transit is shorter, and should be less costly. At present, however, there is a want of population, resulting from three causes—human sacrifice, slave exporting, and petty wars.

Human sacrifice does not absorb much of the population; but it points to habits of destruction, and to a moral degradation which cannot but be prejudicial to the increase of a birth rate. Slave export still thrives in the Bight of Benin: the Ijaye are said during the last two years to have lost 20,000 of their number, partly kidnapped for domestic slavery, partly exported to Cuba. Petty wars are at present the normal condition of the land, and the causes are so complicated, that nothing but _main forte_ can put them down. The Moslems of the Sudan, or Upper Nigerian regions, are pressing heavily upon the peoples of the South. The Yorubas, or non-maritime races, removed sixty miles from the seaboard, are fighting for free transit. The Egbas, or tribes lying between Yoruba and the coast, especially the Abeokutans, under pretence of recovering their ancestral homes, are contending for the monopoly of the road, and are aspiring to change honest labour for the lazy life of brokers or middlemen, like the townsmen at the mouth of the Oil Rivers in the Bight of Biafra. It is evident that, under such circumstances, regularity, which is the first requisite of the cotton crop, cannot be expected.

The remedy for these various evils consists in stationing at Lagos a military force sufficiently strong to impose terms upon obstinate breakers of the public peace. As bygone details have proved, no extensive establishment is required; the force need not exceed six hundred men. At present, the people require a lesson: they own the superiority of the English by sea, but—the error is excusable—they still hold themselves to be on land the greatest warriors in the world. To consult economy rather than efficiency at Lagos, is—quoting an old saying—‘to throw good money after bad.’ The object of such a colony should be economy; to diminish the expense of a squadron which, including head-money for captured slaves, and other minor items, can hardly amount to less than one million of pounds sterling per annum.[3] As the West African coast comes more directly under our command, this disbursement may be reduced to one-tenth.

We have now an excellent opportunity of trying a novel and modern experiment in colonization, and I sincerely hope that experience will have enabled us to steer clear of the errors and misconceptions that have operated so fatally upon our settlements at Bathurst and Sierra Leone. The latter is, indeed, a warning. If the exact reverse of everything that was done in the early part of the present century had been done, we might have seen a thriving and extensive colony of liberated negroes where now there is a wretched and degraded population of hucksters and idlers.[4]

There need no longer be any objection to stationing European officials at Lagos. A future page will show that, within two days’ steam of that dangerous port, there is a mountain range which, with little labour, may be made a sanitarium for the whole coast of Western Intertropical Africa. Camaroons Mountain, where snow falls at times all the year round, and upon whose glorious summit the mercury sinks at night below zero at all seasons, is thus more easily and effectually connected with Lagos than the Mahabuleshwar Hill Station is with Bombay.

I need hardly repeat the phrase _publicâ trita manu_, that if my exertions tend in any way to develop the resources of the West Coast of Africa, my expenditure of time and trouble will have been amply repaid.

[Footnote 1: See _Note_ on page 7.]

[Footnote 2: It appears at uncertain intervals about June, lining the beach and extending for some yards from the water. Mr. Eales found by the microscope that it was composed of animal and vegetable in different stages of decomposition, and gas was evolved, most probably sulphuretted and carburetted hydrogen.]

[Footnote 3: A thoroughly efficient blockading squadron would consist of at least 13 steam-cruisers, besides a provision-ship, and a frigate for the Commodore’s flag, viz.:—

For the North Coast 3 | The Bight of Biafra 1 | The Bight of Benin 4 | The South Coast 5

This is not more than the squadron which the French Government stations off Goree and St. Louis de Senegal, but I am convinced that the prevention of slavery would be more easily effected by land than by sea. The mere capture of slavers exasperates the evil by rendering other shipments necessary. The encouraging and supporting commerce, induces the people to turn their attention from illicit to licit traffic.]

[Footnote 4: N.B.—This was written in 1861.]

The Camaroons Mountains.

An Exploration.

* * * * *

Chapter I.

Preliminaries Of Exploration.

There are few spots on the earth’s surface where more of grace and grandeur, of beauty and sublimity, are found blended in one noble panorama than at the equatorial approach on the west coast of Africa. The voyager’s eye, fatigued by the low, flat, melancholy shores of Benin and Upper Biafra, rests with inexhaustible delight upon a ‘Gate,’ compared with which Bab el-Mandeb and the Pillars of Hercules are indeed tame. To his right towers Santa Isabel, the Peak of Fernando Po, marked in the chart as 10,700 feet above sea-level: on his left is a geographical feature more stupendous still, where the Camaroons Mountain, whose height is popularly laid down at 13,760 feet, seems to spring from the wave, and to cast its shadow half-way across the narrow intervening channel, whose minimum breadth does not exceed nineteen miles. They are evidently sister formations, these giant pyramids; they wear a family look; their shoulders, clad in flowing garments of evergreen vegetation, converge gradually, and almost continuously, at an angle of about 12°, till they meet at a neck upon which a superimposed conical head denotes the great central spiracle.[5] In the island, however, superior humidity prolongs the woody region, whilst the continental mountain, some 3000 feet more elevated, shows a greater expanse of grassy surface clear of high trees. Remarkable also is the variety of the scene, which is rarely beheld under the same aspect. Now, through the thin grey haze of the fair season which paints all Nature with its own hues, they rise like spectres from the ‘vapour foot’ below, the umbras of mountains in the shadowy realm. Then they disappear mysteriously behind a dense, dark loom, affording at times a glimpse through the festoons and hangings of mist and cloud that are caught and held by the rough, tree-clad surface. Then, especially after tornado- rains, profile and fold stand out with a marvellous distinctness that brings them within a quarter of their real distance. Their waists, where the North-east Trade and the South-west Rain-winds meet, are often girt with a sharply-defined, delicate zone of sea-cloud, cumuloni-rollers, snow-white when shone upon by the sun, below in strata, which, forming a new base for the upper half, show an Ossa piled upon many a Pelion: a lower girdle of land-cloud is also not unfrequent, while fleecy little cirri dance like aërial sprites over the Peak. And sometimes upon the further summit of the Camaroons Mountain, a broad sheet, distance- dwarfed to a mere fleck, of a dead and absolute white, which cannot be confounded with cloud, lava, or dolomite, tells of snow within four degrees of the equator. But the time to behold it is when there is a cloudless sky: in the soft and misty air its hues are so fresh, so melting, so tender, that it is a sensual enjoyment to gaze upon them. Then the channel, crisped and freshened by the remnants of the Northern Trades, winds beautifully blue between them; and the monarchs of West African mountains throned in sapphire, all gorgeous purple below, passing into the lightest azure above, raise toward the empyrean their heads jewelled with the gold of a tropical sunshine. Such a picture can never fade from the memory of man.

And there are marvels and wonders connected with them, especially with the unexplored Camaroons.[6] This is the only point of the West African coast still presenting the same features described in the log-book of Hanno the Carthaginian—the admiral, general, historian, and first of lion-tamers.

For long centuries navigators have sailed along its base, but no foot has ever ventured to tread that little hump, which, as in the Pico of Tenerife, denotes the apex. Portuguese and Spaniard, Dutch, English, and French, have all been contented to wonder and to admire from afar this great landmark of the western shores. The coast-people declare that they have seen fire bursting out of the ground; and from Clarence Town in Fernando Po smoke has been observed more than once to issue from the summit of the ‘Mount of Heaven,’ as they call the Theon Ochema, upon which, 600 years before our era, the old Carthaginians gazed in fear. In the pages of a contemporary writer upon the West Coast of Africa, its uplands narrowly escaped being garnished with a race of Dokos and Kimos, dwarfs and pigmies, and _hommes à queue_, the mysterious Ding-Dings and Nyam-Nyams.

Having left pestilential Lagos on the 21st November, 1861, in H.M.S. ‘Bloodhound,’ Lieut.-Commander Dolben, R.N., after visiting the dull and deadly Brass and Bonny rivers I determined to refresh myself with a nearer view of the Camaroons Mountain, and to prospect the chances of carrying out a long-cherished project of exploring it. As we approached the goal on the dawn of the 10th December, a jealous cloud, like the vapour which further north invests Madeira and the Canaries, seemed resolved to hide its majesty from our eyes. Before sunrise, however, every stain of mist had, as frequently happens, disappeared. For a distance of ten miles a huge blue silhouette stood before us, the upper heights gilt by the yet unrisen sun, and the lower expanse still blue- black with lingering night. The dorsal swell was everywhere so regular that it gave to the whole the appearance of one vast mountain rising from a single base. Every quarter of an hour, however, brought a change in the magnificent spectacle. Presently the south-western profile was broken by three serrations; the highest is the uppermost of a group, to which we afterwards gave the name of the Three Sisters; below it was an extinct Vesuvius, the Little Camaroons of old sailors, surging apparently impracticable and perpendicular from a rolling sea of vegetation; lower still was the Botoki cone, a small but independent feature, clearly seen from Fernando Po; and in the maritime region hummocky hills and dromedary’s backs here formed headlands, heaving out in accumulative grandeur from the Atlantic, whose mighty swell, slow and measured, broke at their feet, there sank blended with the winding, waving shore, that dipped below the misty horizon. With the increased clearness of morning, we began to understand that what we had supposed to be a plain surface of tropical forest in the lower basal half, is a succession of long striated ridges, with intervening barrancas, valleys, and ravines; whilst the dots, which had before puzzled us, were wooded protuberances,—‘parasitic’ cones they are called by those who would quiet their consciences with a technical word.[7] Higher up we could distinctly trace the line where the forest region yields to that of grass and shrubs: there again appeared a multitude of little lumps, an eruption of warts upon the epidermis of the giant; they looked like mole-hills from below; above they will become sugar-loaves, bosses, and ‘volcanic blowing cones,’ like the ‘_hornitos_’ or oven-shaped hillocks speckling the Mal Pais plain of Mexican Jorullo. And the terminal domelet, evidently bald and bare, wore, when the first delicate rays of the rosy sun had faded from it, a brown-black, tempered by the intervening blue, but contrasting strongly with the reddish-yellow which winter, or rather the dry season, had already strewed upon the grass- slopes beneath it. As we steamed into the beautiful Ambas, or Victoria Bay, with its protecting islets on our right hand, all admired, after the mangrove-haunted river, the sublimity and the passing loveliness of the scene; above our heads the noble pile capped with its fissured cupola; before us the dwarf earth-banks and the beetling cliffs that margined the mirrory sea, and the forest with its infinite tintage, here ruddy, there almost white, now dark as spinach, then of the lightest leek-green. Some compared it to Navarino Bay, others to the once young and charming Sierra Leone, as she appears in pictures, before fire had wasted the now deadly land. It is fortunate that the devils of this paradise have not yet learned, like the Timni and their brethren the ‘colonists,’ to disforest the soil; when the operation of bush-clearing is carried out, care should be taken to leave all the finest trees standing.

Running with an easterly course, we passed a detached rock which we called ‘The Hulk’—_prosit!_ Beyond it, at the foot of the Botoki cone, where Capt. Allen places his Batoki village,[8] appeared the Point Limboh of our maps, a rugged, forested head, forming the north-west buttress of Ambas Bay. We then fronted a green and shaggy amphitheatre, which apparently had no break nor outlet, and soon afterwards we found it composed of two shallow rocky waves in the coast, the further cove being our destination. On the port-bow rose, needle-like, from the waves, sheer and steep-to, the Bubyá Islands, ridiculously enough called the Pirate Rocks; the distinctly columnar shape of these pinnacled ‘inches,’ the fornos, souffleurs, or blowing-holes, in their bases and their water-worn arches revealed a basaltic formation. Continuing our course in ¼ less 10 fathoms, we left on the starboard bow Ndami, miscalled Ambas, or Amboize Island, a long, narrow chine of black rock, partially greened over and dotted at the northern and western ends with about a dozen huts; a violent surf, urged by the south-west winds, breaks around it during the rainy season. We then passed northward of ‘Mondoleh,’ or rather ‘Mondori,’ Island, which is defended in this direction by outlying rocks and reefs. It is an egg-shaped rock, woody and shady, bluff towards the north, and sloping seawards in the south. It appeared to all of us the best preparatory position for a sanitarium, and as such I shall revert to it.

Presently, at 11 A.M., we anchored in three fathoms water off the mouth of Morton Cove, so called from a certain patron of the Baptist Mission. This north-eastern and innermost recess of Ambas Bay, being completely land-locked towards the weather, must offer, one would suppose, at all seasons an excellent station to boats. The southern part is shoal and sandy, and the bottom is dotted with diabolitos with basaltic points, sometimes covered by the tide, and making it a dangerous anchorage for ships. In the Hydrographic Chart the dimensions of the chord of Morton Cove are unduly reduced. It supplies an abundance of the purest water: a little perennial stream falls into the centre of the arc; the heights are covered with noble timber; there is an abundance of building material, stone being as common as in Madeira and Tenerife; whilst specimens of coralline brought up by the fishermen show that here, as at San Thomé, the growth of madrepore would supply the settlement with lime. And there is a walk round the cove over a soft dark sand, formed, like that of Fernando Po, by a detritus of basalt about a mile and a half long and, at low water, fifty yards wide.

The good ship lay about eight hundred yards W.S.W. of the Missionary station Victoria, and thus commanded a fine view of the site where the future town will be. The position is a broken uneven ledge, formed by alluvium from the mountains almost immediately behind it, and extending from one to two miles towards the sea bounding it on the south. Within an easy walk of two hours, and bearing 65° E.N.E. from the Mission House, is a rounded tree-clad cone, called by the Baptists Mount Henry; this would be the second step towards the upper sanitarium, to which—suddenness of change often induces a relapse of fever in these exceedingly tropical lands,—patients should not be conveyed too rapidly. Immediately behind the settlement is a gorgeous and gigantic growth of equatorial forest, which would require to be cleared or thinned before aught else could be done; at present it is almost impassable during the rains, and at all seasons it breeds swarms of sandflies and mosquitos. The dwarf enclosure which backs the houses runs about half a mile each way, and might grow to half a dozen times the size. At present there are ten habitations, two of iron and the rest of timber. The three of superior appearance fronting the sea command a fine view of the bay- islets, the densely wooded promontories, and the rival peak of Fernando Po, springing gnomon-like from the bosom of the ocean. Opposite the principal abode, the Mission House, are scattered rocks, forming a natural breakwater, which could easily be converted into a pier. This was proposed some twenty years ago, but Africa moves even more slowly than England—not a stone has been laid. The walls are dry lines of basaltic blocks and boulders, which everywhere strew the surface; there is also good clay for bricks. About three-quarters of a mile from, and appearing to command the settlement, is Mount Helen, a finely wooded cliff, admirably fitted for the site of a convict prison; it is a dangerous rocky point in windy weather, and at all times the surf is bad. On the sandstrip below, and east of the mission establishment, are long cadjan’d sheds, used as boat-houses and places of barter; in the Admiralty Chart the place is marked ‘Plantain market on Fridays.’ Here on every third day the islanders and the savages from the upper slopes meet to change their fruits and vegetables, chiefly cocoas and yams, palm-nuts and bananas, for salt, tobacco, small wares, and dried fish of various kinds, the chief demand of the interior. About two miles to the eastward is a second hamlet, which can be reached either by footpath or by canoe; it is also held every third day, and the articles of ‘round trade’ are the same. A local feud—one is prevailing now—often breaks off the ‘bazar’ for weeks; faction-fights with stones are not uncommon; and when the Bimbia people from the east kidnap a woman or two the upper clans fear to descend. In the best of times only a few pounds of provisions are procurable at these markets. It is evident that a colony landing at Victoria should be supplied with frame houses and rations[9] until with reasonable industry it could support itself. The reader must not readily credit the various assertions recklessly made touching the quantity of provisions at Victoria. On the other hand, as freight is easily brought from the neighbouring rivers Bimbia and Camaroons, it is not likely that the Victorians, like the tars of the Elizabethan navy, are always raising, as their rivals declare, the pitiful cry, ‘Vittels! vittels! vittels!’ As will presently appear, there is great fierceness between the two rival settlements; though the battle for bread does not rage fiercely in these bilious lands, yet the only amity lies in community of interests, and none but a stranger—like myself—would attempt to speak out the truth.

Lieutenant Dolben and I, embarking in the first gig, despised the fine- weather passage leading towards the site of the future pier. We crossed in safety the little angry bar, and landed on a shingly beach, narrow as usual: on this part of the African coast there are none of the broad yellow sands that beautify the edges of the Asiatic seas. Then we walked a few yards to the rock-garnished mouth of a second little river which bounds the missionary clearing on the west. It is a mountain-burn, the drainage of the uplands, but a few yards wide, and barely chin-deep; it is, however, perennial, and extraordinarily sweet; ever cool in the hottest season, and overarched with shady trees, which require nothing but clearing. The bottom is neatly spread with pebbles of black basalt, all more or less porous; red volcanic stones and scoriæ, well rounded and water-rolled. It is a delightful bath for those who can despise threats of fever, and it is the model of a trout stream, although we saw in it only the smallest of fry.

After bathing and giving orders to fill casks, we walked towards the settlement, which is not more than three hundred yards from the stream, and were presently met by Messrs. Diboll and Mann, who showed us the narrow path through the bush. The Rev. Mr. Saker was then at his head- quarters on the Camaroons River, of which this establishment is an outpost; we therefore paid a short visit to his amiable family, and then departed.

I had arrived, however, at an apparently auspicious moment for my long- cherished project. M. Mann in 1860 had ascended a few hundred feet of the Camaroons mountains, but having lacked time, and perhaps having overestimated the difficulties, he had returned unsatisfied to Fernando Po, and he was now girding his loins for a second attempt to scale a mountain whose glorious pinnacles had never felt the foot of man.[10] He is a young man of twenty-five, a native of Brunswick, a gardener from the Royal Gardens, Kew, to which he was recommended by the Court of Hanover. Originally attached, in 1859, to Dr. Baikie’s Niger expedition in place of the lamented Dr. Barter, he has been continued as Government botanist in West Africa by the Admiralty, with the ostensible motive of inspecting the timber. The ‘Amabilis scientia’—whose votaries, however, can at times be as cross as poets—appears still at a discount in public opinion. Whilst in these days the geologist holds his head high, one rarely reads of a detached ‘botaniker;’ as a rule the ‘poor herbalist’ is attached as a decent appendage to some Government expedition. Economy is often made to entrench upon utility. And why should the collector, after bearing the heat and burden of the day, lose his reward? Why should not ‘Hooker’s Niger Flora’ be known as ‘Vogel’s Herbarium described by Hooker’? And yet another point. Why should not the collector be allowed to reserve a certain percentage of new plants to study and to name after his friends? We are certainly afflicted in this century with a terrible thirst for small fame, but it is a pity that justice should be sacrificed to it; for which reason, and not invidiously, I venture upon these remarks. If the practical English public ask the _cui bono_ of a botanist beyond the mere science, it may be answered that, setting aside the question of timber, the soil of these regions is capable of being made a mine of wealth when science shall have decided upon what it is best capable of producing.

Meanwhile M. Mann, after visiting the Bagroo river, near Sierra Leone and Barracoon Point, on the Niger, made, after twice failing, two ascents (in April and December, 1860) of Fernando Po Peak, where he was guided by a Spanish official, M. Pellon, the Special Delegate of Public Works. Their visit was the second ever made to the summit, the late Mr. Beecroft’s being the first. He subsequently ascended to the summits of Prince’s Island and San Thomé, and visited the Gaboon and other African rivers. He has been indefatigable in collecting and in preserving his collections, and has supplied one of the greatest desiderata in botanical geography.[11] The results have been to establish: ‘1. An intimate relationship with Abyssinia, of whose flora that of the Fernandian Peak is a member, and from which it is separated by 1800 miles of absolutely explored country; 2. A curious relationship with the East African Islands, which are still further off; 3. An almost total dissimilarity from the Cape flora.’[12] With the West African Islands again, contrary to expectation, there is no marked relationship whatever.

M. Mann had once more left Fernando Po on the 4th December, 1861, and, landing at Victoria, had begun his preparations without delay. There were the usual difficulties to be encountered; the bush people would give no guide, and the chiefs refused passage. Two days after his arrival he was ready to revisit the terminus of his last year’s march, which he knew by the name of Mapanya. A ‘Mokwiri,’[13] however, at Victoria, informed the traveller that the real Mapanya still remained unvisited, and offered to act as guide, requiring for himself and his five boys each five ‘big tings,’ here equivalent to five pounds. This exorbitant demand of thirty pounds for a mere preliminary lasted two days, when M. Mann definitely refused, and the fellow disappeared. At the next market Mr. Pinnock, a native missionary of the Baptist establishment, and his colleague, Mr. Johnson, enabled the botanist by great exertion to engage a guide. The man was a native of Mapanya, but living at a lower settlement: he was charged with presents for the chief of Kombi, a hostile village on the way; these naturally enough he took to his own ‘boss,’ and kept the stranger waiting three days for the return-message. Nor was this when it came particularly favourable. Every hour was precious, yet the traveller was told ‘Sit down for you’ three more days till ‘palaver’ had ‘set,’ _i.e._ been decided, after which guides and bearers might perhaps be forthcoming. Affairs, however, appeared to be opening up; and as my presence was required in the Camaroons River, M. Mann agreed to break ground as soon as possible, to botanize on the way, and to await my arrival before attempting the Peak. I must, however, do him the justice to say that he set out without delay and did his best of bests to be Number One; he failed, however, and failed signally, as the sequel will show.

The afternoon was devoted to inspecting the islands, which were accurately described by Messrs. Allen and Thompson.[14] Ndami, erroneously called Dameh, or Ambas, the outer or westernmost island, some two and a half miles distant from the northern mainland, possesses but one, and that a difficult, landing-place at the inner end. This rocky, tongue-shaped ridge, with a bold head of 150 feet fronting the sea, which foams and rages outside, whilst the Cove, or inner harbour, lies smooth as a mill-pond, is clear of trees, but shows on the lower slopes a little garden-ground about the huts of the inhabitants. It breeds goats and pigs in plenty; water, however, must be brought from the mainland when the people set out on fishing excursions. Separated from Ndami by a channel one mile and a half broad, stands its eastern neighbour Mondori, which Captain Allen calls Mondoleh, and others Mondoli,[15] a much more interesting place. About two miles distant from the northern shore, it is separated from the bold headland forming the eastern arm of the bay by a fair broad channel. The Victorians declare that it is accessible whilst the sauciest sea runs outside, and that, when the rest of the bay is a sheet of foam, vessels can ride snugly under the lee of its northern point; they assert that it has an excellent holding bottom of dark tough clay, and that it is superior in many points to the celebrated Clarence Cove, Fernando Po. The formation of the island, according to Mr. Roscher,[16] is amygdaloid basalt in the lower parts, and in the upper a more solid stone with shiny cleavage, evidently the result of different epochs of cooling; on the western side, where the greatest heat was, the older deposits are destroyed. Mondori rises about 200 feet from the sea, with the profile of a lumpy dome; it is steep on all sides, except at the south-east, where the landing is. Magnificent trees, hung with llianas and festooned with orchids, crown the summit and creep down the flanks. After repeated attempts, we failed to scale the bluff northern side, foiled by the impenetrable bush; we heard, however, the voices of the people above us, and we were told that it contains a few households, who add to the gifts of their nets the produce of the richest soil formed by decomposed basalt. Their huts are hidden from the sea and the bay, and a spring, it is said, supplies them with excellent water. Like Ndami, Mondori is claimed by one Nako, a Bimbia chief, as an inheritance from his father, ‘old Nako:’ there would be no difficulty in purchasing it. The place would be useful as a storehouse and a preliminary sanitarium; and should Government determine to send out convict-hulks or a coal-ship for this station, there is no better mooring-place than under its lee. A hundred negro workmen, gardeners, and lumberers, would easily clear and prepare it during the six months of the dry season.

The other islands alongshore are the Bubya, Bobbi, Abobbi, or Pirate Rocks, whose formation, like Point William at Fernando Po, reveals to us the original connection between the two mountains. Urged both by N.E. and S.W. winds, a violent sea must have beaten upon the low neck of land which in past times attached the bases of the sister peaks. The land was gradually dismembered, leaving fragments of islands, which are still being sliced away by successive inroads. Gradually the water began to roll deeper between them; the channel, however, is still shallow, and there is a subaqueous ridge extending from N.E. to S.W.[17] Presently the same surf, ever perforating and degrading, washed from Ndami the Bubya Rocks, and these in their turn, after being greatly curtailed in size, are nodding to their fall. The group numbers ten to fifteen, according to the state of the tide, which here rises eight[18] feet; the line, separated from the main by a sea-arm about one fathom deep, sets off the shore in a general north and south direction. The largest and the sole inhabited island is the second from the coast; it is a mass of ejected ashes, with volcanic dykes. There is but one landing-place; a sandy hole in a confusion of rocks, immediately below the highest ground. The only path is up the narrow edge of a basaltic vein, leading to a dwarf level, and here a natural bridge about three yards wide, with a sheer drop on either side, affords adit to the steepest acclivity, where the people fly when necessary. Though there is no ground for cultivation, and the grazing for beasts is scanty, the miserable huts swarm with children and dogs, pigs and goats. The people live mostly on fish, and when their rain-pools are exhausted they must seek supplies from the mainland.

Upon all the islands of Ambas Bay there may be 300 souls, who, perfect African Bedouins, are on bad terms with one other, and generally at war with their continental neighbours. They have, with but a solitary exception, received Englishmen well, and we have requited their kindness by attaching to them the odium of piracy. The ‘Lords of the Isles’ are, as their language proves, allied with the Bakwiri, the principal tribe upon the opposite coast; thus probably Fernando Po was also peopled, but at a much earlier epoch, from the mainland, by a tribe doubtless long extinct. The Camaroons tribes named in the chart are the Batongo to the south-west, the Bakwileh (for Bakwiri) south of the mountain, and the Bamboko to the south-east; all terms, except one, unknown to the people. Proceeding from the east, we find the Dualla, by English called the Camaroons people, the Isubu or Bimbia—the latter a name given by the older travellers—the Bakwiri or Bojesmans, and the Rumbi. The latter is also a European word. I could not discover what the tribe calls itself; possibly, like the Bube of Fernando Po, it has no (general) name. The people of Bubya are stout, independent fellows, with abrupt manners, the result of secluded and seafaring life; every visitor has remarked their robust and healthy aspect, which can be accounted for only by the superior salubrity of, and the freedom from malaria in, their island home.[19]

The history of European connection with this part of the coast is briefly told,—but first of foreign nomenclature. According to Mr. J. Grazilhier, who, as related by Barbot,[20] made a voyage to Old Calabar in A.D. 1699, the land was called by the Portuguese Alta Tierra de Ambozes—the highlands of Ambozes. The latter word, not being Lusitanian, may probably be the name of some extinct tribe: here and elsewhere the maritime African races rapidly disappear. It has been corrupted to Amboizes, Amboize, and Ambas, which latter appears in the Hydrographic Chart. The trivial English names of the mountains and the river to their east—Camaroons, further debased to Cameroons, and by the Jonesian writers to the yet more meaningless Kameruns—comes from the Portuguese Camaráõ, or the Spanish Camaron, a shrimp or prawn, of which there is a great variety from Lagos southwards.[21] I have retained the name, although to call this stupendous pile and the broad estuary beyond it ‘Shrimp Mountains,’ or ‘Prawn River,’ sounds somewhat absurd. Captain Allen, instructed by some Bimbia man, in his map gave to the highest peak the name of Mongo má Lobá, which means in Isubu ‘Mountain of Heaven,’ _i.e._ the starry expanse. The natives acknowledge this word: they usually, however, call the whole upper region Mongo mo Ndemi, literally the Mountain of Greatness, which is also Dr. Krapf’s translation of the words Kilima-njáro, applied to the Ethiopic Olympus in Eastern Africa. But to the lower eminence—the smaller hump of the camel’s back, which was formerly called ‘Camarones Pequeños,’ or ‘Little Camaroons,’ and ‘Gibraltar Rock,’ and which the Baptist missionaries have lately baptized ‘Mount Trestrail,’—Captain Allen has assigned the name of Mongo ma Etindeh, the ‘Mountain of Separation,’ that is to say, ‘the separate mountain,’ which the natives do not recognize. I should prefer to call the highland region and bay Ambozes, the two peaks Larger and Lesser Mongo, and the settlement Victoria: it would only, however, confuse those who have learned Camaroons and Ambas to unlearn the terms.

The adjoining country was formally discovered towards the close of the fifteenth century, by the noble Portuguese Fernaõ de Poo, who voyaged during the reign of D. Affonso V.; his name still survives in the Island of Fernando Po. About A.D. 1700 an active trade appears to have been carried on here and in the adjoining river. In the early part of the present century, to judge from Captain Adams, it seems to have fallen out of notice. In 1826 Captain W. F. Owen, R.N., the laborious surveyor of the two African coasts, explored the shore when homeward bound, and accurately laid down its geography. In 1833 ‘Kokliko,’ _i.e._ Colonel, now General, Sir Edward Nicolls, R.M.,[22] visited it in the ‘Quorra’ steamer, and the people of the islands, who had never been visited before except by kidnappers and buccaneers, fled. In 1837, Billeh, Chief of Bimbia, who also claimed Ambas Bay and its islands, conceded the best part of the country to Colonel Nicolls, on condition that he should be recognized as King William of Bimbia.[23] In 1842 the harbour was surveyed by Captain W. Allen and Commander Ellis, H.M.S. ‘Soudan.’ Two years afterwards, Lieut.-Commander Earle, H.M.’s brig ‘Rapid,’ made a treaty with King William and the Bimbian chiefs, abolishing slavery for a consideration of 1200 dollars in goods. In 1847, Mr. Merrick, a member of the Baptist Mission then settled at Bimbia and in the Camaroons River, made the first recorded trial to ascend the mountain:[24] according to the people he succeeded in emerging from the forest country, but presently water failed him; his escort suffered from cold, hunger, and thirst, and he was compelled to return. He died two years afterwards of a confirmed teetotalism: in these lands the habitual water-drinker is even more shortlived than the habitual drunkard.[25] In 1848 King William and his chiefs agreed with Mr. Beecroft to abolish the custom of human sacrifices at the funerals of great men; and in 1850 they bound themselves by a more stringent commercial treaty, settling their ‘comey,’ and affixing penalties to those who injure or stop trade. In 1855 H.M.’s Acting-Consul, Fernando Po, visited Ambas Bay in H.M.S. ‘Antelope,’ Lieut.-Commander Young, to settle an old ‘bob’ which had lasted a score of years. The people of the ‘Boobee Islands’ had defied King William and other Bimbian traders, they had openly seized his slaves, canoes, and goods, and they had refused to come on board the steamer. Fire was opened upon the wretched heap of huts; and when they were destroyed, the proprietors signed a paper ‘acknowledging King William of Bimbia rightful king and ruler of all the mainland and islands extending from Bimbia to Rumby;’ while the king and chiefs of Bimbia promised in their turn not to molest the ‘Boobees.’ In 1856 the late Mr. M. Laird strongly advocated in opposition to Fernando Po a British settlement at Ambas Bay, which had been greatly neglected on account of a supposed want of safe landing: he showed its superiority as a convict station to Ascension, and he also maintained, what had apparently been forgotten, viz., that a great part of the actual seaboard had been ceded to H.M.’s Government.[26]

Victoria was first settled in 1858. In May of that year the Spanish Government, formerly so incurious touching its West African possessions, suddenly bethought itself of making Fernando Po not only a strategic position, but a source of wealth. Hoping by means of _emancipados_ from Cuba to raise the Ilha Formosa to the rank of Madeira and Tenerife, Prince’s and San Thomé, they formally resumed possession after it had been virtually in English hands for nearly half a century. D. Carlos Chacon, Commander of H.C. Majesty’s squadron in the island and its dependencies, at once issued a proclamation forbidding any but Roman Catholic schools; and ordering ‘those who prefer any religion which is not the Catholic, to confine their worship within their own private houses or families, and limit it to the members thereof.’ This announcement fell like a shell amongst the black people of Clarence Town, alias Santa Isabel, who numbered some 800 souls, many of them creoles born in the colony. Having settled here in 1827, when Captain Owen was king, they considered themselves under British protection, and had since 1840 sat at the feet of Baptist ministers. On the 1st January, 1841, the ‘Golden Spring’ landed Mr. J. Clarke and Dr. G. K. Prince at Fernando Po. They returned home in the autumn of the next year; meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Sturgeon had arrived, and were followed in September, 1843, by Dr. and Mrs. Prince, Mr. and Mrs. Merrick, and Alexander Fuller. In December of the same year Mr. Clarke left Jamaica with a total of forty-one whites and negroes, amongst whom was Mr. Saker, the present head of the mission. In 1844 the Baptists attempted to settle at the mouth of the Bimbia River: they found the land beautiful, but deadly; and in 1850 they left it for Camaroons River, which has proved but little better. They then preferred Fernando Po. The Baptist converts, seeing the danger that threatened their pastors, memorialized H.M. of Spain, but obtained no redress.[27]

In August, 1858, Mr. Saker and his family left Fernando Po, where he had been allowed to reside only on sufferance, and emigrated to Ambas, which he called Victoria. He was accompanied and followed by sundry negro communicants, who have since, I believe, repented the step. Having obtained 1500_l._ damages—an exorbitant sum—from the Spanish Government, and apparently ignoring the antecedents of the country, he bought for 2000_l._—in kind, however, and in local valuation, which greatly reduced the sum—the most valuable part of the location from King William of Bimbia, Dick Merchant of Dikolo, and Prince Nako of Dualla. The grant of ‘prime cuts’ was bounded southward by the sea; north, by a line of compass-bearings somewhat indefinite; eastward, by a stream of water flowing into Man-of-War Bay—an adjoining inlet; and westward, a point nearly opposite Bubya Islands: a total coast length of twelve miles, which Mr. Consul Hutchinson makes eighty. It includes, as will be observed, Ambas Bay and Victoria Harbour. The first habitation, not to speak of the tents erected on landing, was a small iron-framed cottage, put up in September 1858, and still used by Mr. Saker and his family; it has wood, not metal, outside, and is habitable and tolerably healthy, no small contrast to the iron coffins, called Consular Residences, at Lagos and Fernando Po.

Then began a dispute which has lasted to the present day, and which could easily have been settled in six months. The jealous Fernandians naturally hated and feared the settlement on the mainland. The Spaniards held aloof, but the English shopkeepers and others locally interested were loud in their abuse. They declared the natives dangerous, and the prospect of the settlers to be starvation. Unable to deny the salubrity of a place to which many of them had often repaired for health, they represented that it possesses no safe anchorage, and cannot be entered without imminent risk during the rains. Commodore Wise, of H.M.S. ‘Vesuvius,’ was directed to visit Ambas Bay in 1859. Unhappily he was accompanied by an official who, according to the missionaries, had desired, but had failed, to become a partner in the land speculation. Captain Wise, who remained there only a few hours, is believed to have reported against the position; and Mr. Hutchinson (‘Ten Years’ Wanderings among the Ethiopians,’ chap. xviii.) gravely informed the public that ‘at one important part of the bay, described in the Rev. Mr. Saker’s chart as having four to six fathoms of water, it was found by Mr. Bowen, Master R.N., who had charge of the soundings, to have only from six to nine feet.’ The chart was copied from Captain Allen’s, and the statement caused considerable indignation; yet in 1862, Commodore Edmonstone, who had never even approached within sight of Ambas Bay, objected upon the mere theoretical grounds of its being a lee shore—as if all West Africa were not a ‘lee shore’—to its capabilities as a naval station.

On the other hand, Mr. Saker, and those who were with him, contended that the native tribes were few, scattered, and not dangerous; that the country can be made highly productive, and support fine cattle, which the island cannot; that building material everywhere abounds; that the north-east tornadoes, which do so much damage at Fernando Po, are here warded off by the mountain background; that mosquitoes and mangrove swamps are unknown; that the sea-breeze is pure and healthy in the lower levels, and that by ascending the high lands any temperature can be obtained; that the islands are fit for lighthouses and coal depôts, and the level strand for sheds and slips; that the eastern sea-arm is open even to the largest ships at all seasons, and that, however rough may be the sea outside, it is ever smooth under the lee of Mondori; that the position lies in the very track of the mail steamers, which must now diverge to Fernando Po; that the tenure of land would not be arbitrary, as must ever be the case in a military station; that Victoria offers complete religious toleration, and, finally, that the Camaroons generally would be the key of the valuable Oil Rivers, whose export trade to England is calculated at not less than a million and a half of pounds sterling per annum.

Virtually all this, and perhaps more, had been expressed by previous authorities. Captain Allen, R.N., after ample experience on the coast, found at Ambas Bay ‘palpable evidence of the superiority of the climate;’ where he enjoyed ‘a pure and prolonged sea-breeze or a cool land wind every night, ensuring a calm and refreshing sleep.’ He ends by declaring (vol. ii. chaps. viii. ix.) that ‘there are few places on the coast of Africa more suitable for a settlement’ than the lands at the base of Camaroons. Captain Close, R.N., does not hesitate to prefer Ambas Bay to Clarence Cove—a cruel dig—where the wind setting in prevents sailing vessels emerging from the gap without the aid of steam, and where at times the tornadoes are so violent that ships risk being stranded. Mr. Milbourne, master of the missionary schooner ‘Wanderer,’ has asserted that, ‘after giving a good deal of attention to this spot’ (the anchoring-ground under Mondori Island) ‘during the different seasons of the year, he found the water always smooth;’ moreover he was never detained in the bay, even when the mouth of the Camaroons River was inaccessible to small craft.

Here then we have Captains Allen and Close—of whom the former has repeatedly visited and surveyed the place—versus Commodores Wise and Edmonstone, who either saw it for a few hours, or who did not see it at all. A ‘plain man’ would hold that this decides the point _pro_ against _con_. I confess, however, that, all things considered, it would be necessary to run in and out of it some dozen times during the worst seasons, between September and November, before one could be certain of its capabilities as a naval station. Its fitness for a convict or settler establishment I hold proven: even were the surf at times heavy, it would be no greater objection than the bar to Lagos or the rollers to Ascension. Of the superior salubrity of the climate there is also ample practical evidence. Mr. Saker has for four years used his house on the seaboard as a sanitarium, when prostrated by the malaria-poison of the Camaroons River; and when the young negresses at Fernando Po wish to ‘make nyángá,’ as they call a peculiarly junketing picnic, they repair to Victoria.

I now proceed to consider the geography of this interesting region. The Camaroons Mountain is strictly in the African terra incognita, whose limits are now 5° N. lat. to 5° S. lat., with a depth into the heart of the Continent,[28] rising about the centre of the Bight of Biafra in the Gulf of Guinea, where the western coast—after that long easterly sweep which, hollowed out by wind and water, caused geographers, until some five centuries ago, to shear off the vast triangle whose base is the Equator, and whose apex is the Cape of Good Hope—bends almost at right angles towards the Austral Pole. It is not an insulated pinnacle, an isolated feature, as some have supposed: its prolongation to the N.E. and S.W. (from 33° N.E. to 33° S.W.) cannot be estimated at less than 50°.[29] In the former direction it seems to be connected by the Rumbi and the Kwa Mountains[30] with that long Fumbina line placed by Dr. Barth between the coast and Lake Chad.[31] Its position, with respect to the main ranges of Africa, has not been determined, and will require a special expedition. It may anastomoze with the meridional Sierra del Crystal, those West African ghauts which approach within a hundred miles of the Gaboon River’s mouth, and which from that point run parallel with the Ethiopic Ocean. On the other hand, it may connect with the latitudinal range known, for want of better name, as the ‘Kong Mountains,’ which, beginning N.E. of Sierra Leone, pass along the south of the Kwara (Quorra), and form Mount Patta to the west and the Bassa Hills to the east of the great stream, where, after collecting the waters of the Binue, it turns to the south. So far as is known, it does _not_ run parallel with the main axis of the interior mountain chains, ‘as though the convulsions which have elevated the inactive mountain ranges corresponded in direction with those which have produced the fissures in the earth’s crust, along which we find the active instances of volcanic action.’

The south-westerly prolongation of the Camaroons Mountains is even more remarkable. If the edge of a parallel ruler be placed on a Mercator’s map, nearly in the usual direction of the wind, viz. from about 33° N.E. to 33° S.W., it will align, besides Mount Alantika and the mountains of Fumbina, the Kwa, the Camaroons, Fernando Po, Prince’s Island, San Thomé, Annobom, and St. Helena, with an offset of 90° to Ascension. This observation, made by Captains Owen and Midgley, shows the strike of the elevating volcanic action. It may also be remarked that, omitting the Fumbina and other ranges, concerning which little is known, that the centre of disturbance was upon the coast, as is proved by the diminution of the more distant altitudes. Thus in charts the apex of the Camaroons is 13,760 feet, Fernando Po 10,190, Prince’s Island 3000, San Thomé 7500-8000, Annobom 2000, St. Helena (Diana’s Peak) 2693, and Ascension (Green Mountain) 2870.

In 1826 Captain Owen laid down the diameter of the true Camaroons buttress at nearly 20 miles from east to west, and the height at 13,000 feet. Captain Boteler, an officer under his command, gave more than 20 miles to the base, 13,250 feet to the greater, and 6000 feet to the lesser peak. The Hydrographic chart allows 13 geographical miles direct from Ambas Bay to the summit, to which it assigns an altitude of 13,760 feet. We reduced the 13 to a little less than 10 habitable miles, and the altitude to 13,130 feet. Allowing 6 miles for the more abrupt counterslope, and 10 miles of breadth from the eastern foot (not including the Bimbia Hills) to the summit, and a similar extent for the western side, which is rather understated, we obtain an area of 380 square miles—about one-third larger than Madeira and the Isle of Man. It is bounded on the north by the Rumbi Mountains, on the south by the Atlantic. The eastern limit is a creek flowing from N.E. to S.W. into the Bimbia River, or Camaraõ Pequeno, a stream probably discharged by the mountain;[32] and the western boundary is a branch of the Rio del Re, known to us as the Rumbi, and heading, it is believed, still further east than the Bimbia. Thus the Camaroons Mountain forms a parallelogram contained within 4° 20′[33] and 3° 57′ of N. lat., and 9° 1′ to 9° 25′ of E. long. We may roughly assume it to be within 4° of the Equator.

A sanitarium is sorely wanted for this portion of Africa. During the present year (1861) Lagos has become a British colony, with the usual amount of civil and military establishments. The only escape from the deadly malaria is to Tenerife or Ascension: the former distant, under the most favourable circumstances, three weeks; the latter ten days of steam by the aid of an accidental cruizer. On the other hand, the Camaroons are distant barely fifty-five hours. Its area is little less than the inhabited portion of the Neilgherry Hills in Western India. It has every range of climate—a tierra _caliente, temprada, fria_. The negro can flourish in the lower, the white man can sojourn in the upper part, where within 4° of the Line nightly frosts prevail throughout the year, and stores of ice and snow can be collected. The country is scantily inhabited, and only in parts, by a timid and feeble, though a wild and treacherous people. Land may be bought for a nominal sum; and the soil, as this narrative will show, is everywhere fitted for cultivation. With less than the Spaniards have expended upon Fernando Po, or than that which we have lavished on the splendid but useless Zambezi River, these mountains might in a few years be made a solid benefit to the coast of Western Intertropical Africa. I have seen the marvellous effects of removing naval invalids from their ships to a few hundred feet above sea-level at Fernando Po; here, by judicious management, even greater benefits might be expected. And for the future we must provide against another and even a greater evil of climate: the vomito, or yellow fever, which, of late years confined to the lands about the Gambia and Sierra Leone, is, whilst I write, advancing with giant steps towards the Equator. Its extreme elevation is known to be 2500 feet.

The age is agitating a movement in the right direction—one most important to a nation which, like Great Britain, requires expansion, and of which may be said, ‘_non progredi est regredi_.’ The mixed Anglo- Saxon race wants those cosmopolitan powers of acclimatization which scatter pure races, like the Chinese and Turanians, the Jews and the Gipsies, unscathed over the habitable world. The ‘people living between the Four Seas’ cannot, it is true, rear families in the tropics: the superior race may not descend into an inferior ethnic centre, though the reverse operation has many instances. Our melancholy task appears to be that of smoothing the way for a future and higher type of the initial genus and species—man. Emerson’s dictum may be extended to ourselves when he declares, ‘The German and Irish millions, like the negro, have a great deal of guano in their destiny. They are ferried over the Atlantic, and carted over America to ditch and to drudge, to make corn cheap, and then to lie down prematurely to make a spot of green grass on the prairie.’ We must abandon the Utopian idea that we are destined to people the earth.[34]

But all the world over there are scattered isolated positions; hills rising like islands from the plains, mountain-masses, and rocky ridges, where Anglo-Saxon life and labour can—if incapable of propagation and perpetuation—at any rate be greatly prolonged. During the last half- century by deaths of British soldiers in India—not including casualties or the average loss of healthy stations—the nation, it is calculated by economists, has lost some ten millions of pounds sterling. Sir Ranald Martin, a strong advocate for the change, asserts that the third generation of unmixed Europeans is nowhere to be found in Bengal,[35] that the English soldier cannot be maintained in health and vigour upon the lowlands, and that the selection of suitable hill-stations has now become a state necessity. Health is strength, and strength is moral power, especially in the East. Sir Charles Metcalfe removed the garrison from the seaboard to the hills of Jamaica, and since its establishment at Newcastle and Maroon Town the mortality—excluding cases of disease contracted in the plains—was reduced to about one-third. In the Himalayas, 6000 feet above sea-level, on an average of five years (1850-1854) the mortality is hardly more than 3 per cent.—which is little higher than that of the civil population in France—against at least 10 per cent. in the low lands. At Poonah the English regiments have been healthier than those stationed in London barracks. When railroads shall have been established in India, no Minister will think of exhausting the soldier’s health and energies by confining him to the febrile zone; but keep him fresh and vigorous to throw upon the enemy wherever and whenever required. And our sons will marvel at the folly of their sires, who for the flimsiest of reasons, for a mere _vis inertiæ_—insist upon destroying Governors-General by binding them to the deadly Lower Bengal.

On the 11th December I set out in H.M.S. ‘Bloodhound’ to visit the Camaroons River, where the traders were calling lustily, as is their wont, upon Hercules. It is one of the ‘trust rivers,’ meaning thoroughly untrustworthy: the white seller, expecting a return of 100 to 150 per cent., gives on credit goods which the black purchaser takes, firmly resolving to delay payment as long as possible, and, if he can, not to pay at all. The Camaroons has at least three head-men, called ‘kings’ in the African sense of the word—monarchs much like all the kings, thirty and one, whom Joshua bin Nun smote with the edge of the sword—two hulks, three or four ships, and perhaps a dozen European agents, who, to collect some poor 1700 puncheons of palm-oil and to settle their endless grievances, require the presence of at least one ambassador and one commodore. The natives are not without unpleasant practices and habits. If a chief, for instance, ‘boys’ another, the ‘boy’ at once sets out in his war-canoe to show ‘he be man,’ slaughters some unoffending wretch belonging to the insulter’s tribe—an African succedaneum for the duello’s: the victim’s clansmen retaliate upon the ‘man’s,’ and so on _ad infinitum_. Like all Africans, having no confidence in, and expecting nothing like justice from, one another, they flock to the nearest European official, and beg him to act as arbitrator. If he consents, a regular ‘palaver’ must ‘come up,’ and words cannot express its weariness, its damnable iteration. Each speaker not only ventilates his eloquence even unto nausea, he also begins as near the days of Adam as he can, lest aught be wanting to proper comprehension; and for fear of the strong points being forgotten, he dins them a dozen times into the hearer’s ears. I persuaded, not without a little gentle violence, Bonny Bell, Priso Bell, and King Kwa or Acqua, the three kings—individuals clad in a total of red-yellow bandanas and tall black or sky-blue tiles—to abolish, under pain of removal from the river, such ‘facinorous practices,’ and, convinced that they would return to them at the first opportunity, I bade temporary adieu to the haunt of fever and iniquity, mentally exclaiming

Heu terra felici haud adeunda viro!

An advantage, however, had been secured by this visit to the Camaroons. Mr. Saker, long anxious to explore ‘the mountain,’ volunteered to accompany us, and his intimate knowledge of the Dualla dialect, and his long experience in the Bimbia country side, rendered him a valuable acquisition.

Of the ‘Bloodhound’ 13 out of 55 whites, besides the commander and the chief engineer, were prostrated by fever—such is too often the effect of a ‘Tour round the Rivers;’ and the medical officer protested against an intended visit to Old Calabar, the Kom Toro, and the Rio del Re, the last two of which I was anxious to open. The night of the 13th December saw us off the coal-shed Fernando Po, and four days sufficed to collect the outfit necessary for a month in the jungle.[36]

The usual croaking followed the announcement of an intention to explore the mountain. The four or five fierce wild tribes holding the lower regions were represented as being able to turn out 5000 muskets—perhaps they may have 50. The forest swarmed with ‘tigers,’ hyænas, and other bugbears, the fevers were mortal in the lower regions, the cold would be intense, snow having just been seen in the upper heights,[37] and the Krumen—the only servants in these regions—would certainly die or desert, perhaps do both.

I cannot, however, but plead guilty to a modified fatalism. Purely retrospective, it has many advantages. ‘We could not have helped it,’ obviates all regret for the past however regretful, and bygones become doubly bygones; whilst the present so soon becoming the past is hardly more valuable, and the future, which must inevitably merge with present and past, is even less important:—

Il passato non è, ma se lo finge,

La viva rimembranza;

Il futuro non è, ma se lo pinge,

La credula speranza;

Il presento non è, ma in un baleno,

Passa del nube in seno;

Dunque la vita è appunto,

Una memoria, una speranza, un punto.

Prospective fatalism in practice appears absurd. When the Turk sits in an embrasure under a volley of musketry, and refuses to move—by-the-by, I emphatically never saw this often-heard-of incident—because Allah knows when he is to die, it ought to strike that benighted personage that Allah may also know he is to escape death by a little more activity. Fatalism, however, like all modifications of faith, is mainly the effect of climate. In the cold, bustling, and energetic north, amongst the elbowing Anglo-Saxons, where,—contrary to what the Italian says,—

Life is real, life is earnest,

fatalism is at best a sickly exotic. As you approach the Mediterranean it grows into a kind of creed: every one has known Southrons,—Italians and Spaniards,—who, fatalists by nature, yet broken by habit to the orthodox theological Catholic doctrine of Freewill, have subsided into a mixture of both, which they cannot define nor explain to themselves nor to others.

But although I had heard the cry of wolf too often to give it ready ear, solid difficulties presented themselves. A fortnight’s march up a pathless, densely wooded, and possibly waterless mountain, with bad tribes in rear and a desert in front, where all supplies must be carried by Krumen—poltroons who at the appearance of a fancied danger fling themselves into the bush, mutinous dogs whose one invariable tactic under difficulties is to make progress so hard and so dangerous, by bumping the master’s hammock against stub and stone, by inducing sore feet, or by diminishing the provisions, that the march must perforce be given up in disgust—may appear at home as feasible as a run through the Himalayas or the Andes: it wears, however, quite another aspect at Clarence Town.

During my brief delay on the island another volunteer presented himself for the exploration, which assumed the air of a little international expedition. M. Atilano Calvo Iturburu, assessor or assistant judge, was as weary as myself of ‘palavers’ and Fernando Po: he obtained a month’s leave of absence, and zealously prepared to outfit himself. The reader must not confound him with certain venerable beings in wigs and gowns, owning to that style and title in England, but rather think of him as a fast young pig-sticking Anglo-Indian magistrate. Although we had looked into the craters on the summit of Ilha Formosa, I almost feared—not knowing him to be a Vascongado on the mother’s side—lest, after many fevers, he might break down upon the frozen heights of the Camaroons, and explained to him the conditions of exploration, namely go ahead at all risks, even if one or more be left behind, and to send on the stores, ‘the tools to him who can handle them.’ He responded cheerfully, and, so far from ‘caving in,’ he devanced me on one occasion, and when the party was laid up he preserved his health. I found him throughout an amiable and not unphilosophic man, whose society round the camp-fire added greatly to the pleasures of an evening in the wild.

Betimes on Wednesday the 18th December, Judge Calvo and myself found ourselves off Ambas Bay in H.M.S. ‘Bloodhound,’ Lieut. Stokes commanding. As Morning, habited in her well-known russet mantle, walked over the beautiful Camaroons, we could distinguish the features of the scenery, which, viewed from the south-eastern entrance, are even more enchanting than when seen from the western approach. The immense height of the wooded curtain behind dwarfed the several islands that sentinel the bay to mere patches of a darker hue; presently they stood out with a beautiful distinctness, and relieved the sea of any appearance of monotony. Already the hand of Autumn—I should rather say the dry season—had besprinkled the many-hued foliage with red and yellow, whilst others, beautiful in their new coats, were decked with large masses of flowers, some white, others resembling the peony. Rising from the ruddy cliffs that wall in the harbour, the land sloped upwards to 5000 feet within about three miles; thin curls of blue smoke rose here and there, evidencing settlements, and the little canoes of the fishermen flitted over the milky blue waters. We steamed through the eastern channel, a clear entrance 880 yards wide with 5 to 6 fathoms of water, under Mananga Point, the high terminal bluff separating Ambas from Man-of- War’s Bay, and defending Victoria Harbour from the violence of the south-western winds.

Landing at the Missionary establishment, we found Mr. Saker up and ready: M. Mann had set out in advance, and we agreed to follow him next morning. On the same evening the ‘Bloodhound’ left us for Lagos, where she was to convey her ex-commander Lieutenant Dolben, and whence she was to proceed under Lieutenant Stokes to the much-desired South-Coast station. With regret I saw her leave. The Russian saying touching houses may be applied to ships in these regions: ‘Build the soundest imaginable, and the cockroaches will be in them before the owners.’ She was certainly very ‘roachy.’ But her comfortable dimensions made her a great contrast to the fast and narrow ‘screws’ which are now fashionable upon the West African Coast; she had been my home for well-nigh a month; and to one whose usual tenement is his hat, a good lodging and pleasant society are not to be lost sight of _sans serrement de cœur_.

[Footnote 5: Smaller volcanoes like Vesuvius ‘change almost imperceptibly from the steepest incline at which the outermost ashes and rocks will hang together, to a curve which ultimately sweeps away into a horizontal direction.’ But in those the cone bears a far greater proportion to the whole than in such features as the Camaroons and Fernando Po, consequently the angle of the culminating line appears excessive.]

[Footnote 6: Fernando Po Peak was ascended as early as 1843.]

[Footnote 7: As far as volcanic action is known, the different crater- vents communicate by ducts with the same central cause—very distinct from all idea of parasitism.]

[Footnote 8: ‘The river Camaroon with the Ambas Islands,’ by Capt. W. Allen, H.M.S. ‘Wilberforce,’ 1842, with additions by Mr. V. F. Johnson, H.M.S. ‘Philomel.’ The soundings and positions of the Hydrographical Chart are of course tolerably correct; the names of tribes and places are all more or less wrong.]

[Footnote 9: The Spanish colony that landed at Fernando Po in 1858 attributed the greater part of its losses to the inhumanity of the black people, who made a combination not to lodge them, and agreed to ‘cut their chop’—_anglicè_, to starve them.]

[Footnote 10: Writing from Fernando Po, May 31st, 1860, to Sir Wm. Hooker, M. Mann says:—‘I heard that you had inquired if it were possible to ascend the mountain of Bimbia or Camaroon. You will hear shortly that it is quite impossible, and only killing men to send them up there; this, however, was also told me before I went up Clarence Peak. It is, no doubt, _very_ difficult, but it is possible; only too much must not be expected from the first trip.’ (From the ‘Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnæan Society,’ vol. vi.)]

[Footnote 11: ‘A knowledge of the temperate flora of any spot on the West Coast of tropical Africa has long been one of the greatest desiderata in botanical geography, not only on account of the intrinsic interest that must attach to the plants of the extremely few isolated points so elevated as to possess a temperate climate in that vast humid and torrid area, but also from the light such lights might be exacted to throw on the floras of St. Helena, the Cape de Verd, and the Canaries, all of which (and especially the former) contain peculiar endemic genera, whose nearest allies might be expected to exist in the mountains of the neighbouring continent.’—‘Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnæan Society,’ vol. vi.]

[Footnote 12: Loc. sup. cit.]

[Footnote 13: Meaning a man of the Bakwiri tribe or bushmen, from kwiri, a bush. The word is Isubu. This small _échantillon_ will suffice to show that the dialects of East and West Africa are as closely connected as their flora. Here also there is a slight European importation; I particularly remarked ‘bwámo,’—good!—and suspected the Spanish bueno.

Despite the dicta of Dr. Beke (‘On the Mountains forming the Eastern Side of the Basin of the Nile’—a paper full of good and borrowed but unacknowledged information), who on this point follows Mr. E. Norris’s edition of ‘Prichard’s History of Man,’ I still deem it advisable to retain these ‘terse and concise African prefixes,’ which, if abandoned, would necessitate a weary redundancy of words. They can hardly, as Mr. Norris says, ‘occasion puzzlement to the readers of African intelligence,’ unless intelligence be sadly wanting in the readers. Mr. Norris and Dr. Beke omit the Kafir prefix ‘when it has not become part and parcel of the English appellation,’ deeming it ‘not only awkward, but positively incorrect.’ With due modesty I venture to opine that they have substituted for a fancied awkwardness a real blunder. To call ‘Unyamwezi’ and ‘Usumbara’ ‘Nyamwezi’ and ‘Sumbara,’ is about as correct as to term ‘Britain’ and ‘Britons’ ‘Brit’ or ‘Brits.’]

[Footnote 14: ‘Narrative of the Niger Expedition in 1841,’ by Capt. W. Allen, R.N., and T. R. N. Thompson, Esq., M.D., London, Bentley, 1848. It was written some time after the return of the authors from that disastrous attempt, and is a valuable work.]

[Footnote 15: The Bakwiri, who are erroneously called Bakwileh in the chart, use R for L, opposed to the tribes about Batanga, who use L for R; here, moreover, there are neither sibilants nor aspirates. Their speech, like the Kisawahili, abounds in K, a letter avoided in the Dualla or Camaroons dialect.]

[Footnote 16: MS. Geological Journal, Niger Expedition.]

[Footnote 17: Captain Allen (vol. ii. chap. vii.) distinctly asserts that this submarine ridge exists; on the other hand, there are shipmasters at Fernando Po who declare that the water rapidly deepens from the shore to 80 fathoms.]

[Footnote 18: Others say nine: the chart gives six feet of rise at full and change.]

[Footnote 19: ‘In the latter half of the day I was much refreshed by the constant sea-breeze, which in Fernando Po we seldom enjoy, and which renders Victoria such a pleasant and agreeable residence for Europeans.’—M. Mann, ‘Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnæan Society of London,’ Botany, vol. vii.]

[Footnote 20: From this old author I extract (Appendix I.) an accurate and truthful description of the region, which is not noticed by his contemporary Bosman, who yet alludes to the De El Rei and the Camaroons rivers. The reader will not fail to remark how greatly the islanders have changed since those days.]

[Footnote 21: ‘Camaroon’ in the Mauritius means crawfish.]

[Footnote 22: This gallant officer succeeded in 1830 to the government of the settlement formed at Fernando Po by Capt. Owen in 1827; he also has left his mark in Nicolls Island at the mouth of the Bimbia river.]

[Footnote 23: This assertion rests upon the direct authority of Capt. Allen (vol. ii. chap. vii.).]

[Footnote 24: In Appendix II. I have republished Mr. Merrick’s narrative from the Baptist Magazine of 1845.]

[Footnote 25: The faculty begins quietly and gingerly to confess this belief. ‘The evidence that intemperance in drinking exerts a particular influence in the production of hepatitis is by no means conclusive;’ and ‘the occurrence of hepatitis, on the other hand, in its severest form, is not an unusual event in persons of temperate habits—a statement which practitioners in India generally will, I am sure, amply confirm,’ says Dr. Morehead (‘Diseases of India’). He might have instanced the case of M. Jacquemont, who, deriding the English consumption of beef and beer, scientifically Hinduized himself with rice and water, and died at the end of the year of an invincible dysentery.]

[Footnote 26: I have reprinted Mr. Laird’s letter in Appendix V.]

[Footnote 27: It must, however, be owned that, beyond the expulsion order, the Spanish authorities have shown great toleration; in fact, if their rule has a fault, it is over lenity. A French commandant would certainly have billeted his men upon the negro townspeople when they refused to let lodgings and they ‘cut chop.’ The negro Baptists tried hard to enjoy a little persecution: during their private prayer meetings, or when ‘sitting under’ an occasional missionary from the mainland—churches are not permitted—they pretended great fear, closing doors and shutters whenever they inflicted injury upon the sweet songs of Zion. The Spanish wisely ignored all these little fooleries. The people are of some 30 to 40 nations, originally from Sierra Leone, with a few _emancipados_ from the Oil Rivers. They are justly described by Capt. Allen as ‘a lazy population of liberated Africans,’ who neglect the advantages of one of the richest soils in the world. They are now perfectly contented; many boast of being Spaniards, and they will probably all come over to the old Church, where, however, they will be no acquisition. There is probably not a soul amongst them that can distinguish a Protestant from a Catholic sermon. The a’mighty dollar is slowly but surely working its way. The salaries being defrayed by Cuba are liberal at Fernando Po, and considerable sums are spent in the island. The governor, who reports directly home to the President of Council (Minister of War and of Colonies), besides pay and allowances of 8000 dollars per annum, may dispose yearly of 25,000 dollars for local improvements. If we had sanctioned even this much in the Gold Coast and other outlying provinces, they would not now be in ruins. One million of reals was assigned for the immigration of colonists during the first year, and the Jesuit Mission has been allowed 6000 dollars per annum. Whilst the British consulship is worth 500_l._, the Spanish Secretary to the Civil Judge receives 3000 dollars, and the interpreter 2000 dollars. Besides which there is the expenditure of the naval and military establishments; two hulks, one steam gun-vessel, and a picked company of 150 infantry, each paid 10 dollars per mens., with two captains and a similar number of lieutenants, sub-lieutenants, and surgeons.

Prices of course became exorbitant; three shillings were paid for a lean chicken smaller than an English pigeon; the negroes, however, made merry and lived in a congenial idleness, which has more than compensated for the loss of their ‘morning (and evening) privilege.’]

[Footnote 28: A glance at Mr. Keith Johnstone’s latest map of Africa will show that the only purely white paper is bounded by the limits above assigned.]

[Footnote 29: As a rule, the lines of volcanic disturbance run in a diagonal to the direction of the earth’s rotation—suggesting some tidal action in the gas or fluid underlying the earth’s crust—from N.W. to S.E. along the western side of the great terrestrial areas of Europe, Asia, and America; they may be traced again along the eastern side almost as continuously, trending in transverse lines from S.W. to N.E., as from Mexico to Greenland, and from Sumatra to Behring’s Straits; hence a general parallelism of coast, inland mountain, and axis of volcanic action is inferred.]

[Footnote 30: Capt. Owen saw the Rumbi Mountains from a distance of 60 miles, and made them 44 miles N.E. of Camaroons Peak. The Kwa (Qua) Mountains, which are visible from the Cross or Old Calabar River, are placed both by Captains Owen and Boteler (chap. xiv. vol. ii. ‘Narrative of a Journey of Discovery,’ Bentley, 1835) 64 miles N., 16° 15′ W. of the Camaroons, and were seen from nearly 80 miles.]

[Footnote 31: In this range is Mount Alantika, to which the Hamburg traveller assigns an altitude of eight to ten thousand feet.]

[Footnote 32: Mr. Beecroft ascended the Bimbia, but I am unable to find an account of his trip.]

[Footnote 33: The northern limit is at present doubtful.]

[Footnote 34: The reader will consult upon this subject the able paper on Ethno-Climatology, or the Acclimatization of Man, by Dr. Jas. Hunt (‘Trans. Ethnological Soc.,’ vol. ii., New Series). I differ with the author only in suspecting that he has attached too much importance to the danger of dysentery, hill-diarrhœa, and other bowel complaints in the altitudes above the malarious tropical regions. Altitude must not be our sole guide in sanitaria and hill stations; they can be judged only by actual experience, and a height which here is healthy is there found to be distinctly the reverse.]

[Footnote 35: Somewhat similar was the opinion of the late Duke of Wellington, not to mention a cloud of competent observers and writers. Mr. Crawfurd (‘Trans. Ethnological Soc.,’ vol. i., New Series, p. 89) considers this ‘an hypothesis unsupported by facts,’ although every fact tends to prove it.]

[Footnote 36: I had determined upon that period by an inspection of the chart. From Ambas Bay the direct distance is 13 miles, which must be multiplied by two for détours, and in such places an average of a mile per diem is fair progress. The following is a list of necessaries for a party of seven men:—

£ _s._ _d._

7 blue shirts 2 5 6

7 serge trousers 3 10 0

7 pr. boots 3 10 0

12 red woollen caps 0 6 0

2 dozen matchets 1 0 0

2 hatchets 0 2 10

2 (water) breakers 0 8 8

452 lbs. rice 7 10 8

200 lbs. pork 7 10 0

14½ gallons rum 3 2 10

5 pieces blue baft 3 5 0

2 ditto satin stripe 0 17 4 ------------------ £33 8 10

For private stores the best guide is any Alpine book, and even ‘Zouave leggings’ are not to be despised. Explorers in these regions must not forget that they are their own doctors, nor neglect caustic and diachylum; the reader will presently see how dear this little experience cost me.

All the belongings should be carefully watched. Krumen will steal anything and everything they can. If the water-breakers be provided with lock and key they will, unless stopped by the stick, try the trick of breaking them, and all cutlery will rapidly disappear, knives being most useful as offerings of gallantry to the native belles.

The prime difficulty here, as in other parts of Africa, is the _chaussure_. It is almost impossible to keep boots in order. The natural precautions are to procure the best and strongest articles that London makes—especially avoiding elastics—to use a little neats-foot oil instead of any vegetable unguents, and to keep them out of the reach of air and damp as much as possible. Even then two or three new pair will yield to the lava and other influences within the month.]

[Footnote 37: The usual snowy season is the tornado period, in our spring and autumn, with occasional falls during the rains. From May to July, and from September to October, the appearance is common, at other times rare. Yet in February, 1860, Messrs. Saker and Mann, after a heavy storm, saw from Victoria the topmost cone sheeted with white; on the next day a few stripes remained, and on the 3rd all had disappeared. On the 14th February, 1862, Capt. Perry, H.M.S. ‘Griffon,’ and all on board, when steaming up Camaroons River, saw the whole main peak covered with snow.]

Chapter II.

We Encamp At ‘Mann’S Spring.’

Precisely at 6 A.M. on the next day we arose, despite the ravages of mosquitos and sand-flies—pernicious little wretches, midge-sized, but capable of raising lumps as large as billiard-balls upon man’s exposed epidermis—bade adieu to Mrs. and Miss Saker, and fifty minutes afterwards found ourselves _en route_, with a hurrah. The party consisted of four heads and eighteen tails. Mr. Saker was attended by two men, who carried his bedding, water-breaker, and a locked box of necessaries, such as rice, tea, cocoa, sugar, boiled ham, salt pork, sweet cake, soft bread, salt, chilis, and a pocket-pistol of cognac, which _we_ emptied, and the veteran voyager never took his eye off the commissariat. He was temporarily accompanied by Mr. Johnson, a native of the Susu country, near Sierra Leone, above thirty years a resident in these parts: he had begun life as factotum to Mr. Beecroft, and had settled down in his old age as a teacher in the Camaroons Mission. By his inducement, ‘Money,’ alias Muni, a Dimbia runaway from King William, who had previously deserted M. Mann, on pretext of his mother’s illness, but who in reality feared capture for debt by the villagers, accompanied us as guide.

Judge Calvo travelled with four Krumen, all hopeless convicts from the _cuartel_ of Fernando Po, and his body servant, a youth named Eyo, who had succeeded in escaping the customs which followed the death of his patron, young Eyo Honesty, King of New Calabar. My party consisted of six men, under Black Will, a consummate ruffian,—these, brought to a sense of their duty, often make the best travellers. Despite, however, a sound preliminary dressing on board the ‘Bloodhound,’ and the vigorous applications of my excellent steward, Selim Aga, Black Will soon managed to sprain his ankle, and to return to Victoria. The tail was completed by four Krumen, who had been sent down from the mountains by M. Mann, to convoy a fresh supply of provisions. Not having ‘beef’ enough, we carried with us arms, surveying instruments, bedding, and rations for a week, leaving the remainder at Victoria till we could find hands.

The young sun glinting through that ‘cathedral of immensities,’ the bush—Americans call our rivers creeks, and such is the magnificent Anglo-African term for a forest of trees some 100 to 150 feet high—saw us threading the little clearing behind the settlement. In this lower part, under the outlying hills, the vegetation consists of palms—the cocoa, confined to the immediate seaboard,[38] the _Raphia vinifera_, called, from its uses, the bamboo and the wine palm,[39] the _Elæis Guineensis_, or oil palm—and a variety of other trees, known only by scientific names to Europe. A forest at home is often composed of one genus, some of two or three, oak, elm, and beech; in the tropics they must be numbered by dozens. The monarch of all trees is the mighty _Bombax_. Of little inferior size are the scrubby oak of Sierra Leone (_Lophira alata Banksii_, the light-red wings of whose fruit ‘the lady- natives wear in their hair and ears’[40]), the African ‘oak’ (_Oldfieldia Africana_, also called teak and mahogany, but neither this, that, nor the other), the sulphur-tree (_Morinda lucida Benthami_), also called brimstone-tree,—the latter three affording superior timber for house and ship-building. Of inferior size are the African cork (_Musanga Smithii_), the Kolu tree (_Sterculia acuminata_), and a variety of acacias and fici. The moss-streamers, so common in the Southern States of the late Union, and which gave a name to ‘Barbadoes,’ here appear upon the extremities only: at 7000 feet they will clothe the trees from boll to branch, and, by killing the smaller branches, render the forest somewhat unsafe during tornadoes. Where clearings have been made the Cardamom (an unknown Amomum—Danielli?), and large grasses, principally the broad-leaved panicum and the narrow saccharum,—which do not, however, cut like the sugar-cane,—extend from the shore to 4000 feet above sea-level, where smaller species take their place.

However beautiful the forest may be, it is ever a melancholy sight in these lands, this riotous nature, against which man’s force has hitherto been unable to prevail. One’s principal thought is how best to fell it, and as there is little underwood the land cannot be difficult to clear. The natives usually hew down the trees about November, after the rains, lop off the branches, which are fired for manure at the end of the dry season, or about the last of February, leave the trunks to decay, and plant their crops, yams and koko (_C. esculenta_), ground-nuts and cassava, maize and batatas, before the wet season begins.[41]

In these lower lands it would be necessary to corduroy a road. During the rains the traveller must slip from the stones to sink waist-deep in mire, and often when crossing over the mud his feet must hook in the tree-roots. The whole of this land, extending from the shore to 1500 feet above sea-level, is a rich yellow loam, admirably fitted for sugar- cane, tobacco, and cacao. The latter is far better for these idle races than coffee, which requires slave labour.[42] The seed should be procured, unboiled,[43] from Prince’s Island or San Thomé, set in prepared patches, and weeded round when young. After twelve months it keeps its own ground clear, and bears fruit after the third year. The only labour is that of gathering the produce, breaking the husk, removing the seed, sun-drying for two or three days, and carrying to market: the sole objection to ‘theobroma’ is that it will not keep. The plaintain, which grows luxuriantly, might be made a source of wealth.[44]

After a thirty minutes’ walk we found the tall grasses beginning. A little further we passed the path leading through the Batongo to the Bimbia country, here distant about ten miles, and from that point twenty miles of creek passage places the traveller in the Camaroons River. Beyond it the line became steeper, and we saw, through a thin screen of trees, the conical head of Mount Henry rising high to eastward of us. We twice forded the black bed of a pure and purling little stream, which seemed admirably adapted for water power. It varied in breadth from twenty-five to eighty feet, and in depth from two feet to six inches, and the dark stones both in the stream and on the banks were covered with the snowy flowers of a small aroid. The general course was to the S.S.W., and it was either the main stream, or a feeder of the rivulet which flows into the sea close to Victoria. The dense wet scrub now completely excluded the sun, and beyond the second fording began a steep and rocky ascent of degraded basalt.

Here we met villagers seemingly on their way to market. The dress of the many was a cotton _pagne_ or wrapper; the poorer were clad in the simple attire of the Fernandian Bube,[45] and of the Eastern Wagogo. A grass string was fastened round the waist, and a strip of cloth was made to act as T-bandage, an isosceles triangle, sometimes tight, and two inches broad at the base, at other times with ends depending in front. The original costume was, I believe, a kilt of plaintain-leaves. The stuffs were the common English cloths of barter, satin stripe, blue baft, turkey-red cheques, and a few silk bandanas. The ornaments were the small red and yellow, blue and white porcelain beads general in the Camaroons River; the incisors of the porcupine tied by a thread round the neck, and a multitude of ‘Lobo’-armlets[46] of brass, copper, and iron, especially the ‘manilla,’ a form now well-nigh obsolete. The head was mostly bare, and the shaving, as usual, highly fanciful. A few had calottes of blackened bamboo-splints inside and goatskin outside, and one young person wore a cap of some animal’s intestines. They walked with alpenstocks, between five and six feet long, in shape not unlike the Galician fungueiro. The extreme slipperiness of the clayey soil after rain—I have seen many an old mountaineer on his back both here and at Fernando Po—renders this third leg a necessity. It is sometimes neatly carved, and provided with a round bulge for a snuff-box at the handle. The men carried weapons, old muskets with greasy rags wrapped round the rusty locks, or long broad blades in skin sheaths, ending in a leathern disk, like the daggers of the Somal. Those who could not afford such costly sorts had common ‘matchets,’ thin choppers of base metal fitted with wooden handles. The women were evidently the bees of the social hive; almost all of them were laden with large black panniers of bamboo cane shaped and strapped to the back, except when the place was already occupied by the baby, clinging racoon-like to the parental person, and supported by a foot square of grass-cloth, with shoulder braces. There was little of beauty among the fair and faithless Bakwiri; some of them, however, had firmly-made lower limbs, like the _mollets_ of the constitutional-loving Englishwoman. The elders were ‘bales of cadaverous goods,’ the juniors had the grotesque prettiness of the baby gorilla, and some wore their faces blackened in sign of mourning, a practical illustration of sending coals to Newcastle, lily-painting, or gold-gilding. They were wonderfully tattooed with a blue, produced, it is said, by the soot of some root and a resinous gum picked up on the shore. The patterns were fanciful _sévignés_, perpendicular lines down the forehead, artificial eyebrows,—the natural being shaven,—wedges between the optics and temples, circles and wheels upon the cheeks and chin, and similar efforts of high art. The eyelashes were plucked, with the usual unpleasant effect, making the organ look bleared, fixed, and beast-like. The operation is an infallible preventive to

‘Ce trait de feu qui des yeux passe à l’âme,

De l’âme aux sens.’

All, even children three or four years old, were clamorous for a _prise_. In these countries both sexes sensibly use tobacco, which in Europe has mostly been monopolized by the wrong sex. It is placed between the lip and teeth,[47] and even the common powder made by Krumen is preferred to the best smoking leaf. They appeared healthy. A few cases of ulcers and hydrocele were seen, but on the whole they were freer from disease than our party of Krumen.

As we advanced a single woodman’s hut appeared upon the roadside, the scattered plantations showing a tolerable population; and loud musket reports were heard rumbling and echoing through the hills. Mr. Johnson accounted for them by some recent death. The wood was vocal with the hoo-hoo-hoo of the touraco, which a stranger might mistake for a dog’s bark. The palm-birds fluttered round their nested tree; and the widow- bird perched upon the spray. At times a brown kite (_F. chilla_) lay on the wing, the sole sign, except the sand-fly, of animal life. After an ugly pull up rocks and roots, dotted with grass, and bewildered by a labyrinth of paths—our carriers were compelled to rest every half- hour—we entered the district of Bosumbo, and found three scattered tents tenanted by Bakwiri. These people do not, like the Fernandian Bubes, congregate in towns: the scarcity of water and petty feuds keep them separate. They do not inhabit the immediate seaboard for fear of kidnappers; nor do they extend up the mountains higher than the banana and the oil palm. Their habitat is therefore, as is the case with the Bubes, between 1000 and 3000 feet above sea-level. Mr. Johnson insisted upon leading us to the tenement of the chief, Myombi, who lives, probably for safety, like most of his fellows, in the centre of his district. At 10·30 A.M. we reached the place, two blocks, each of two huts, surrounded by plantains, and separated by a hundred yards or so. It lies between N.N.E. and N. of Victoria, distant about 4½ miles;[48] and the altitude is 1055 feet. Presently Myombi himself made his appearance in the glazed hat of a British tar—these people must make themselves ridiculous in some way—and showed us a little civility, which time proved to be not wholly disinterested. We halted at his place for breakfast: water threatening not to last, we experimented upon the banana-stalk, and found its porous and cellular tissue to contain a refreshing supply of wholesome drink, with a faint flavour of cucumber. Some of the natives have not, it is said, any other potable; and it forms excellent fodder for cattle, keeping fresh for three weeks. Mr. Johnson mentioned succulent herbs and water-bulbs, like those of the South African karroos; none, however, were met with.

Noon saw as again on the footpath way. A short distance out of Bosumbo took us to a quadrivium, of which the north-east branch led down the hill-slopes, through a country of scattered settlements, to the populous town of Abo;[49] the south and east to the sea; and the west, our direction, up the mountain. Myombi had been persuaded, by the gift of a pair of matchets, to lend us a guide. The sun’s heat was overpowering in the lanes of grass that here opened out, and there strangled the road. It was a fine place for snakes. They are rare, however, in these dank regions; the only specimen seen was a fine asp (Cerastes), hanging outside one of the cottages. The bearing of our path somewhat perplexed me; we struck nearly due west; and instead of ascending from, we seemed descending to, the sea. Presently the cause appeared in a few scattered huts, called Turu,[50] whose chief came forth and forbade passage till presented with a cloth and a matchet. We then resumed the road, which dwindled to a hardly perceptible by-path, crossing from east to west, with other ramifications leading, it was said, to Bimbia. Here the face of the country was wrinkled with prisms of jagged trachytic rock, separated by chasms, cloughs, and ravines, which must roll torrents during the rains, and by pick and spade might easily be made to supply water throughout the year. We passed many old clearings, or rather fallows, denoted by high grass and plantains run wild, and a few fresh cuttings, a hundred feet each way, in the dense bush. The rocky, rooty ground rendered walking difficult, and condemned us to look more often at our feet than at the features of the country. On the dank, miry surface, unseen by the midday sun, the ants were unusually troublesome; and we found a few millepedes and land-shells, which were secured for transmission home. Llianas, which here extend from 2000 to 7000 feet high, ‘romped upon the trees.’ There were asclepiadæ, gardeniaceæ, convolvulaceæ, and cucurbitous plants, whose fruit, like the cocoa, forms a convenient water-dipper. The dry season is in these regions the flowery period. The ipomæa, a bright blue convolvulus, and momordica with red-yellow flower and little prickly gourd, invested the bush where it was more than usually open. The clematis was beautiful with its spangles of white bloom; and we especially remarked a geranium; a papilionaceous bean-like blossom of vivid scarlet; a perfumed flower, not unlike a honeysuckle; and the large yellow malvacea, popularly called hibiscus. There were orchids in numbers; but these epiphytes in Africa lack the beauty of the American. The conspicuous tree of the forest was the enormous eriodendron; the anthocleista and monodora were remarkable for their foliage; whilst the sterculia, though leafless, glowed with carmine-coloured fruit.

After three miles of hard labour, which made us tremble for our loaded Krumen’s feet, and halt frequently to recruit exhausted nature with _anizado_ and water, the guide suddenly exclaimed, ‘Mboka Botani!’ (Botani’s town). It had an ominous sound; and we were afterwards justified in terming it Botany Bay. The district is called Mapanya. Here every place appears to have two names, its own and that of its head-man. Presently tall shredded plantains appeared rustling in the now cooler breeze, which was odorous with a salvia bearing a fair blue flower. An African stile, three transverse rungs for steps—sometimes there is a notched palm-trunk—in the dwarf but solid palisade, introduced us to a settlement of two huts, from which the unarmed tenants sallied forth with horrid din, to gaze upon us with absorbed stare. During our few minutes’ _séance_ the judge descried a horn, probably ivory, and proposed adding it to his collection: the owner, however, modestly demanded only a hat, a coat, and a shirt; in fact, he wanted to become a ‘gentleman.’ The warning of the guide, who pointed to a sinking sun, brought us to our feet again; and after sundry rises and sinkings of ground we saw upon the summit of a grassy and flowery hill a figure in wide-awake and blanket-suit, which proved to be M. Mann. He had spent the day—as his first words informed us—in rest, having returned but yesterday evening from the summit. The announcement caused us to ‘tie a face,’ as the Africans say. Soon, however, I reflected that, considering the distance and the height, it was some mistake on his part; and this it proved to be. The enterprising botanist, so far from having scaled the summit, had never even seen it. Meanwhile he led us into a hut which he had cleared out and occupied, supplied us with some bad green water, which he had purchased at the rate of three tobacco-leaves per breaker,[51] and an excellent pepper-pot of yam and fowl.

We had hardly seated ourselves, and removed from our continuations the hamated burrs of the hedysarum,[52] before Botani, a buxom chief, made his appearance, and M. Mann introduced him as ‘an unusually polite person, quite different from those he had previously seen.’ He was a short thickset individual, aged about thirty-five, with a well-turned, hillman’s leg. His complexion, like that of his wives—many of whom had ‘taken venues under their girdles’—and his children, who were numerous, was a sallow yellow, a tint rare about the Camaroons River: the contrast with the dark brown of his followers would suggest in Eastern Africa a difference of descent. His brown eyes were bare of lash and brow; his long fat upper lip was clean shaven; his beard was the Yankee goatee; and he had a regulation whisker, tattooed in bright blue. Not less laughable than his _personale_ was this Soulouque’s costume: a lofty black beaver, a scanty breech-cloth of chequed cotton, and a full-dress coatee, all red and yellow—‘devil’s livery’—of the old Royal Marines. Thus attired _en roi_, he progressed towards the hut-door; and whilst the vulgar squatted upon the ground, shouting a song and beating time, he performed a solemn pavane, ending in a lavolt, a turn-about, a wheel- about, and a jump Jim Crow, in right royal African style. A frantic pushing of palms, as if he would prostrate each new-comer friend, and an accolade, right breast to right breast, were the signs of absolute welcome which our Polichinelle vouchsafed to us. The judge roared with delight; but I felt grave. When the negro king dances he expects the white man to pay the piper somewhat heavily.

The edifying exercise concluded, M. Mann told us the tale of his troubles. On the 13th December, after a ‘dash’ of ten ‘little’—pronounced lill—‘tings,’ each worth a shilling,[53] to Myombi and Nangasika, the first and second head-men of Bosumbo, he had left Victoria with Mr. Pinnock, Money his interpreter, six Krumen, and a Mokwiri guide, with seven followers, who had received, as fee for safe conduct to Mapanya, four pieces, _i.e._ goods worth 4_l._ Arrived in the evening at the Bosumbo, which he called ‘Bassumba,’ village, he gave the chief his present—an assortment of ‘lill’ tings’ worth about thirty shillings. The next day was a compulsory halt; the natives, pleading fatigue, refused to proceed, and Mr. Money, having drawn payments to the amount of 2_l._ in kind, naturally ran away. Thus the traveller was reduced to employ as interpreter a boy seven or eight years old, a Bimbia orphan in the service of Mr. Pinnock, and rejoicing in the name of ‘Poor Fellow.’ This was the first mishap. Everywhere in Africa the interpreter should be a man of weight and wealth. On the 15th, Myombi again refused passage till dashed to the extent of 2_l._ in a coat, a keg of powder, and minor articles. Here was a decided mistake, which patience would have prevented. The only return gift was a small black porker, a wretched fowl, and two yams. M. Mann, however, starting at 8 A.M., reached in four hours his _Meta Incognita_, Mapanya. On the 16th, Botani, who had left home ordering a hut to be cleared for his visitor, returned without pomp or dancing, and received his ‘dash’—one musket, one keg of powder, matchets and knives, snuff-box, mirror, rum, tobacco, and silk and cotton kerchiefs, worth in toto about 2_l._ 10_s._, for which he agreed to supply an escort. On the 17th the chief brought eleven men, and demanded for them each one head of tobacco and one fathom of cloth, besides extra blackmail for himself, a musket, sundry kerchiefs, rum, and tobacco, in value, perhaps, thirty shillings. M. Mann set out at 7 A.M., reached the water, which he afterwards christened by his name, at 5 P.M., and nighted a little beyond it. On the next day, the natives having disappeared, he was accompanied by two Krumen only to a Cone, where he left his maximum and minimum thermometers, and whence he returned—persuaded that he had reached _the_ Peak, which was under a cloud—arriving at Mapanya on the 18th December.

It is evident that ten guineas will not pay the expenses of a vacation tour to the Camaroons Highlands, as it has been made to do in Switzerland.

After the ‘stagnant air and leaden sky, the livid clouds and rain- torrents, heavy, prone, and broad,’ in the oil rivers, the ‘dissolution and thaw’ of Fernando Po, and the ‘simmering upon a damp mattress’ in the regions below, we enjoyed a pleasant soirée in the soft, light, hazy air. At 6 P.M. the thermometer showed 69° Fahr., in the Camaroons River it rarely sinks below 73°, and ranges from that to 82°. The Krumen, being sadly tired, asked, after their fashion, leave to play, and sang and danced through half the night. Mr. Saker and I slept in M. Mann’s tent, composed of three blankets, two for the pent-roof, and one for the boot and entrance. The judge and the botanist preferred the hard-knobbed floor of the tent.

My heart fell at the prospect before us. We had four sets of Krumen, the most disorderly of their unruly herd. All were apparently to be masters; it was the old query—

‘I Señor—thou Señor—he Señor,

Tell me who’ll pull the boat ashore?’

They entered the tent and impudently took whatever they inclined to, rum and tobacco, pork and white rice. We had set apart a breaker of pure water; they pushed in and helped themselves _ad libitum_. The savage instinct readily returns upon this race. I have heard old man-of-war’s Krumen tell their Captain that in the bush all men are equal. They contributed not a little to the failure of the Niger expedition in 1857. The members, supersaturated with Exeter Hall influences, treated their forty-seven negroes like rational beings. A little ‘prigging’ began; first a few leaves of tobacco, then a mirror, a knife, a matchet: after a few weeks the supercargo found that he had lost goods to the extent of 240_l._

My resolution was taken during that cool pleasant night, which was succeeded by a delightful morning, the mercury showing 64° Fah. at 5 A.M., and the small birds singing with all their throats. At the break of day we arose, banished the thoughts of the sand-flies with strong green tea, and saw our breath—What a pleasure to the Englishman in the tropics! My companions were persuaded to place the Kruman party under my charge, and I made them over to Selim Aga with an order that no man should enter the tent or touch the rations without leave. The fellows listened with a smile, and instantly disobeyed, a proceeding as readily noticed by the soundest external application. ‘He be debbil man,’ was the remark with which my ears were gratified. This, however, was the beginning of amendment; the fustigations were afterwards more ceremoniously conducted, and at the end of a fortnight my rascals were in fair working order, sighing for ‘Nanny Po,’ which at other places they regard with horror.

The 20th December was a Friday, and a halt. Mr. Johnson and Money, whose services were no longer required, returned to Victoria, and seven Krumen under Selim Aga accompanied them, with orders to bring a fresh relay of provisions. We had ample time to cast a look around Mapanya and at its population.

The clearing lies W.N.W. of Victoria, and N.N.W. of Bosumbo. It is distant from the sea about 7½ miles,[54] and the altitude was laid down at 2650 feet. The site is a dwarf platform, and the enclosure is 1100 feet across. Curious to say, in this land of chronic skirmish there are no stockades, the use of which is so well known to Africans. As early as 1562 Sir John Hawkins had 6 men killed and 40 wounded, out of a total of 150 men, before one of these ‘Pahs’ near Elmina. It is surrounded by a dense bush, in which the saccharum grows ten to eleven feet high, and the plantain, the cork-tree, and that locally called gamboge (_Psorospermum alternifolium_), forming a background. A little below the entrance is the last Elæis, that typical tropical type, here stunted to about thirty feet. The natives, I have said, cannot live without this tree: they tap it for their drink every morning, leaving an empty calabash for the next day’s draughts, and during the operation they make the peculiar laughing, crowing cry, which, echoed by the hills, sounds weird and strange in the wild. They prepare a modicum of oil for household use, and carry to market the fresh nuts removed from the spike. Where the wood opens there is a lovely view. Thousands of feet above us, bearing N. ¼ W., and emerging from the shaggy folds of the mountain, are three ‘nicks,’ as they are called in the North Country, one wooded, the two upper bare. M. Mann informed us that we should find water behind the highest and boldest Cone, which can be seen from Fernando Po, and we named them the ‘Three Sisters.’ The background, dense with eternal forest, which shuts in the higher cones, is clear and sharp between 8 and 9·30 A.M., and again an hour before sunset: during day, however, it is hid at this season by a veil of muslin-like vapour. Below us we sight, as though through the small end of a telescope, the blue and misty ocean, with its edge, not rising in the lowlands like a wall on the horizon, but ill defined and melting into sky; and by walking a few paces we see a bird’s-eye view of Mondori Island, the Bimbia Hills, hung in middle space between firmament and ocean, and the Camaroons River, winding, like a dull white thread, through an abyss of brownish blue.

The settlement consists of two parallel lines of huts, four on one side facing three on the other, as near the Camaroons and Gaboon Rivers, forming the nucleus of a single street, which runs into a steep grass- lined by-path, leading up the mountain. There are also little tracks and passages through the bush to the adjoining villages. The only objects of remark are a few large grindstones, the dwarf trellises for gourds growing at the entrance, and in the centre, propped by other stones, a small basaltic block, hollowed out like a shallow mortar. Before our arrival M. Mann had seen the principal men busy in ‘making Fetish’ to ward off bad luck and to keep the peace. They poured water from a dipper over a small broom placed upon this embryo altar, and offered similar libations on all the roads leading out of the villages. It is a race

‘Whose primitive religion reaches

As far as Adam’s first green breeches;’

but this time their Fetish was not ‘strong.’

The huts are oblongs, with pent-roofs of palm-thatch, and the walls are wattled posts of the strong and fibrous tree-fern, covered with sheets of bark to keep out the wind. Near the outside lie stones and logs, used as chairs, and the experienced eye notices the ominous drum. It is shaped like a large keg, with two parallel slits in one of the long ends, leaving between them a solid bar for handle;[55] the reverse side, upon which it stands, is flattened, and the sticks are a pair of little cudgels. The huts have a single door, but neither window nor chimney. The interior is divided into three: at one end is a dark chamber, serving, I presume, for the father and mother that make the family; the centre is the hall, &c.; and the other extremity may be called the kitchen, containing a rough hearth and an upper platform, below which meat is smoked in a hanging tray, and above which fuel is stored. Furniture there is none; the beds are coarse hatchet hewed planks four feet long, and placed upon cross-blocks. Cleanliness is the last thing thought of; the ceiling looks as if painted with coal-tar, the air reeks with smoke, and the floors show that sheep, goats, and poultry pass the night with their owners.

Under such circumstances life is necessarily simple. These gymnosophists have no want but food and drink, fuel and tobacco. Of course they will not labour, and, if they did, they would be fools. A few hours’ work in the year enables them to burn some square yards in the bush and to plant their banana-stems, after which climate does the rest. The Bakwiri rise with the dawn, and shiver till the fire is lit. The men then hasten to their palm-trees, and to assist them in their ascent, carry a hoop made of many kinds of creepers. It is an oval, of three feet conjugate; the part intended for behind the back is broad, that which touches the tree is twisted, and the ends are hooked and knotted together.[56] In the rainy season it is necessary to cut little steps in the trunk. The women, shouldering their panniers, go forth for food and water. About the latter article there is a mystery. When we ask where they find it, the reply is, ‘too far off;’ they refuse to show it. We observe that the people grease themselves with palm-oil instead of washing—imagine the consequences!—and that the animals are not allowed to drink. They return after some time from various directions, bearing calabashes corked with leaves, and the contents are turbid or green. We conclude, therefore, that their wells are probably stagnant pools, soon exhausted, and that they are then reduced to squeezing ferns, grasses, and dewy plants for their beverage. Presently the little flocks, which have kept up a concert of cries, are driven out by the boys to graze. The goats, like the Camaroons ‘Egbo,’ are superior to those of the coast; the sheep are of the lanky, hairy, thin-tailed kind, resembling dogs rather than Southdowns. These animals are greatly valued by the people, who will not sell them except for exorbitant sums; they are better treated than the children, and are used chiefly to pay ransoms, to settle palavers, or to serve as stock when ‘trust’ fails. They are never milked, and when we applied for a little of the article the answer was, ‘King he no will!’ The poultry is plentiful and good, but hardly to be bought. I saw amongst them the short-shanked African variety, black and yellow game- birds like those of Tenerife, and a breed of hens with spurs like cocks. Each village contains half a dozen long-legged pigs, somewhat like the black hogs of China, which are as familiar to the hut and as foul to the street as the Irishman’s best friend. A few prick-eared curs are also bred for the table and for hunting purposes. The children are numerous, and the high birth-rate amongst savages is the best test of prosperity, as increased infant mortality is the surest sign of civilization.

At 8 A.M. the villagers break their fast. The food is ‘fufu’ of plantain, pounded and made into paste with water; it is eaten with a kind of ‘palaver sauce,’ palm-oil, yam, hibiscus (_Corchorus olitorius_, the Egyptian mulukhiyah), and, when they can get it, ‘bush-meat.’ The women work through the day; the men pass their time chatting, smoking, and taking snuff, sleeping, brawling, and drinking—when rum is not to be had—palm-wine, which is boiled for greater strength. At 3 P.M. the flocks are folded, and at 4 there is a dinner like the breakfast. Wood and water are again brought in, and at 8 P.M. the village is as silent as the grave. Thus—

‘Les jours qui viennent et vont

Se refont.’

‘What a wretched existence!’ the European reader will exclaim.

I vehemently doubt this. The so-called reflecting part of Creation will measure every other individual’s happiness or misery by its own; consequently it is hoodwinked in its judgment. Considering the wisdom displayed in the distribution and adaptation of mankind, I venture to opine that all are equally blessed and cursed: both sexes and every age, the great and lowly, the rich and poor, the robust and the confirmed invalid. Some temperaments enjoy more acutely, and suffer in proportion; others are less sensitive; both, however, it appears to me, have the same sum total of felicity. The Lawgiver of the Hebrews must have so believed when he made this world the sole scene of human existence, requiring no future life to restore the fancied unevenness of the balance. ‘If it were not for the assistance of artificial madness, false lights, refracted angles, varnish, and tinsel, there would be a mighty level in the enjoyments of mortal man,’ said one of the wisest of our modern humourists. The Anatomist of Melancholy somewhere remarks that the two greatest enjoyments are meeting the ‘object of one’s affections’ and the intermission of severe sickness: thus explaining why those hug life who live in what the healthy deem tortures. I am convinced that my dull and half-fossilized Bakwiri are not a whit less happy or less miserable than any prince, millionaire, or philosopher in Europe.

The chief Botani had shown himself most eager for his ‘hansel,’ and we persuaded him with difficulty to wait till 11 A.M. He then appeared in great hurry, armed with what the Chinese call the ‘divine utensil,’ his symbol of chieftainship, his throne—a stool. We presented him in due form with his ‘dash,’—one mirror, two knives, two cutlasses, two heads of tobacco, one cotton kerchief, one silk bandanna, and a 10-lb. keg of powder, the latter here worth as many shillings. Though accompanied by his confidant, whose eyes expressed infinite greed, he appeared satisfied, emitted sundry ‘meditative grunts of much content,’ and in sovereign self-satisfaction retired with his easily-won, ill-gotten gains to speechify about his grandeur as protector of all the whites, and to get tipsy.

The consequence was a lively scene. Botani had been ‘fresh’ in the morning, and unpleasantly civil. In the _bonhomie_ of his early drink, not having the fear of Allah before his eyes, but being moved thereto and seduced by the instigation of the Shaytan, he had offered me—not _en tout bien et tout honneur_—his daughter, a small yellow child, about twelve years old, and seemed thunderstruck by my refusal. Continence, everywhere a rare and difficult virtue, is regarded by barbarians—despite what Dr. Livingstone asserts—rather with contempt than with respect. He had been treated like a great Mogul, and with a few glasses of rum he became a Great Mogul. About 2 P.M. he rushed out of his hut, with drawn dagger, and began the war-dance. After a long brawl he laid forcible hands upon the small interpreter ‘Poor Fellow,’ and swore that he would seize him for Money’s debts. When in this state, and only then, these negroes, losing their sense of fear, become dangerous; at other times they are not more formidable than hyænas. M. Mann, though unarmed, pluckily enough pulled away the boy and drew him into a hut. Botani then rushed to the war-drum, and commenced a frantic _pas de charge_; the women—ominous sign!—slunk into the bush, and the men provided themselves with knives and muskets. Mr. Saker and I had taken up quarters for the day in a hut opposite that occupied by our companions. He began to harangue the people in Isubu, a language which the Bakwiri, who intermarry with the Bimbias, understand, and the rest of us had recourse to our revolvers. Presently a diversion in our favour arose. An old hunter, who had led the botanist up the mountain—we called him ‘Balmat’—came forth, armed like the rest, and addressed furious reproaches to his chief, who was running to and fro like a vicious madman, hoping that we might bolt, but fearing to begin the fray. After much of this display, Botani’s brother, _i.e._ confidant, addressed us civilly, and, after a long speech, split a plantain-leaf into three pieces, which he severally deposited in ‘Poor Fellow’s’ hand,—a kind of memorandum of how much ‘trust’ was owing to the village. Botani then pressed palms with all around, once, twice, and thrice, as men about to be hanged are wont to do; the strangers, who had flocked from the neighbouring settlements at the sound of the war-drum, departed, and the women reappeared. Our doughty chief then retired to sleep off his rum. When all was over, we pulled out our revolvers from our breeches- pockets, and made signs that next time their use should be made manifest.

Liquor was the primal cause of this trouble; there were, however, others. The Judge, wild with delight at escaping Fernando Po, had been a little overintimate with the people, dancing with them, and making them laugh, under the erroneous impression that it would win their good graces. Familiarity breeds contempt in Africa as well as in Europe, and the fun ended in horseplay, chiefly beard-pulling. It was a misfortune, but inevitable, that we had a child for our interpreter. But it was a great mistake to encamp in a central village; we should have followed the East African plan, and either have bivouacked outside, or at any rate at the further end of the enclosure.

A profound calm succeeded this tempest. We passed a pleasant night listening to the bush-dog calling for ‘fire ’tick,’[57] the murmurs of the wind, the growling of thunder down south, and the rustling of the tattered plantain-leaves, which sounded like raindrops. ‘Poor Fellow’ spent the time in fear and trembling, whilst the Krumen armed themselves with matchets, and begged for candles, which we refused; they retired doggedly, and probably spent hours in calculating whether in case of desertion they could steal a boat and make some ship, where they would have been thankfully received.

At 10·15 A.M., on the morning of the 21st December, Selim Aga returned with his small command from Victoria. Unhappily he was accompanied by the chief Myombi, who had behaved badly to M. Mann, and that chief was moreover ‘sprung.’ He began by demanding a glass of bilám—rum—and when refused he retired in dudgeon to some hut, where he apparently found it. The beery Botani was this morning as tame as one when liquor is dying within him; he was sitting upon the stool of repentance with a very hangdog look. Shortly after our breakfast a gathering of the clan took place upon the logs and stones outside the tent, at whose door he was squatting. Something evidently was in the wind. Presently ‘Poor Fellow’ was sent for, and ordered to ask us our intentions on the morrow.

Our reply was brief, but explicit. On the morrow we were to ascend the mountain with nine or ten guides, whom we offered to fee, and we expected in return for our ‘dashes’—which had not provoked any retaliation—kindness and civility.

Botani, the dipsomaniac, was then put forward by Myombi, who sat ostentatiously in the background. After a long consultation, ‘Poor Fellow’ was directed to inform us that the price of ascending the mountain was 500 ‘big tings,’ _i.e._ 500_l._, otherwise that we might return whence we came. Yesterday Botani had shown the normal African dread of our leaving his village whilst we had cloth and food, and now he was urged to desperation by the villain Myombi. The demand provoked a shout of laughter, and we asked them if they could not take something less. In another half-hour they brought it down to 300_l._ But we had now seventeen Krumen besides our five selves—a force too strong for the Bakwiri: ‘ultimate sovereignty resides in the right arm of man;’ the _mollia tempora fundi_ had passed by; ‘defiance not defence’ became our motto. Despite the excited remonstrances of M. Mann, who, desiring to make a depôt at Mapanya, urged the _suaviter in modo_, which infallibly would have led to other and greater troubles, I resolved by Mr. Saker’s advice to try the _fortiter in re_. ‘Poor Fellow’ was told to say that we were tired of this ‘fool talk,’ that we would not pay another farthing, but advance by foul, if not by fair means. The reply was, that we should not have carriers nor guides. We rejoined that ‘it was nothing to Bacchus,’ that we would go alone; and pointing to Myombi, who frequents the market at Victoria, we made him understand that he should answer fo