The first sight which had attracted my attention when I landed at Bathurst was the number of black policemen who strutted about, their staves in their hands, with airs of inexpressible pomposity. As they never told any one to move on, and as cooks in Africa are masculine, I was at a loss to understand for what purpose they had been organized. But it was explained to me. When officers are drunk they ride home on the backs of constables. How touching are these provisions of Nature! In winter a moss grows on the rocks of Lapland for the sustenance of the reindeer. In the dreary depths of the Sahara the traveler finds green oases and sparkling springs. So in this barbarous land, where there are neither cabs nor wheelbarrows, Providence has furnished policemen.

Drink is an institution of Anglo-Western Africa, cold brandy and water the national beverage. A man is estimated by the proportion of water which he mingles with his spirit. Moderate men are milk-sops; abstinent ones are pariahs; for here, without drink there can be no union.

When one sits down to table with Anglo-Africans, one observes now and then their faces twitch spasmodically as if they had received an electric shock. These facial contortions are the relics of intermittent fever. At the same time you become aware that a grosser disease is present among your companions. One of them will attempt to catch a spectral fly which day and night is flitting before him; another directs your attention to a swarm of bees in a corner of the ceiling; and a third whistles to a black dog which no one can see except himself.

That which would be very amusing were it not so sad, is the assurance with which some cadaverous ensign informs fresh-comers that it is impossible to live in that climate without brandy and water. His bloodshot eyes, his trembling hand, his deadened appetite, bely his words; but still he drinks on. He must follow the general example. Here all prostrate themselves before the shrine of Bacchus; not the young laughing god, with garlands on his rosy brow and smiling nymphs upon his knee, but a naked, solitary, wasted wretch, without beauty and without disguise; with filmy eyes, and hollow cheeks, and fetid breath; a ghost of health, intellect, refinement, departed never to return.

Brandy and water is certainly the most prevalent and fatal cause of disease on the West Coast of Africa. "Died of brandy and water" is a common phrase. It is the inevitable consequence

of a life deprived of the influence of ladies, of books, and of athletic sports. Drunkenness is the ulcer of inanition.

That which astonished me very much at first was the absence of all mental culture in these colonies. Nobody speaks of new books, or of any thing higher than local gossip or routine. Sometimes one meets with vestiges of intellect worn and wasted away in this atmosphere of the vitiated and the gross. Happily I know exceptions to this rule as to all others; but there are few residents who can resist the influences of climate and company, which not only enervate the body, but degrade the mind.

At Sierra Leone there once existed, it is true, some semblance of society, as we understand the word in Europe. There were occasionally balls, to which women went to talk scandal and men to drink Champagne.

There were also tea-parties, at which the ladies assembled to play at loo, and where large sums of money were lost and never paid, from which many enmities resulted. There were also prayer-meetings, where they criticised each other's consciences. In fact, scandal, gambling, and false devotion-the three cardinal passions of ladies of a certain age-were carried to such extremes, that the whole coterie dissolved; and, as far as I could learn when I was there, no visits, at all were interchanged.

E

CHAPTER XI.

THE TRIBE OF COMMERCIAL TRAVELERS.

I enter the Gaboon.-Take a House.-Tornado v. Fever.-Baraka Mission.--My Steward Mongilomba. - Gaboon Commerce. -The Gorilla Palaver. - Tropical Rain.

I WAS disappointed of an interview with Richard Burton, who was up the Cameroons, a volcanic mountain as high as the Peak of Teneriffe. However, during the few days which I spent at Fernando Po, I was located at his house, and had at my disposal a library of which the profound and varied nature was an index to that great mind.

I obtained a passage on board the "Minerva," a vessel bound for the Gaboon. On the morning of my departure I felt a slight pain in my forehead; I had no appetite for breakfast; I was gid. dy and languid. These were the incipient symptoms of malarious fever, which I had contracted somewhere on the coast, and which had been incubating in my system. I got on board the "Minerva," and laid myself under many blankets. But perspiration would not come, though my hands felt as if I were holding them before a furnace. Then I took some warm drink, and immediately dissolved. I was very weak after this, and could not touch meat for some days; but a mild cathartic, followed by gradual doses of quinine, restored me to perfect health, and I saw that the ordinary fever-fit is little worse than an English cold-a stupefying nuisance, that is all.

The "Minerva" touched at the Malimba River, a little to the south of the Cameroons, and at Botanga. The latter is the largest ivory mart of Equatorial Africa. Its little river falls into the sea, a large and noisy cataract, and the Elephant Mountain, which Burton has since ascended and described, rears its huge back at no great distance from the sea.

On the fourteenth day of our voyage the sea-breeze bore us up a river which, with its strong salt tides and sluggish stream, resembled an arm of the sea. This was the Gaboon.

On the right-hand bank I soon discovered the fort and comp

toirs of the French; a little farther up a village of English factories; and behind these, perched on a green hill, the houses, school,

and church of an American mission.

HOUSE AT GABOON-RESIDENCE OF THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY.

On the left bank, concealed within a creek, lies the town of King William, or Roi Denis, the bamboo metropolis of Gaboon. As soon as I had landed I made inquiries about a house, and

the next day I was shown one. It was built upon piles—a consideration of some importance where the soil exhales disease. It possessed three rooms, all of which had a "deck" or planked floor, and throughout which a sofa, a chest of drawers, a table, and two chairs were tastefully distributed.

In the smallest room of the three I found the black proprietor, shivering under fever, and surrounded by his wives. He offered me a hot hand, and his house at a price which was hotter still. He wanted for that barbarous dwelling forty dollars a month. I tendered six, and quitted him, to all appearance an insulted man.

I was receiving temporary board and lodging in one of the English factories. Two or three days after the gentleman appeared and made me an elaborate apology. When I had called on him he had fever; he had talked foolishness; he did not know what he had said. I was a great white man; he was only a poor negro; I wanted his house; that was enough; he must give it me -at twelve dollars the month.

This proposal was not disinterested, but it was reasonable; his first had been absurd. In febre veritas. It would seem that fever, like drunkenness, exposes a man's vices, caricatures his foibles, and extinguishes his virtues.

The next morning, as I was writing before breakfast, the lines began suddenly to intermingle, and the opposite wall made me a profound salutation. At the same time my head felt as if it were a clock being violently wound up. This was a return of the fever which had attacked me at Fernando Po. I conquered a great inclination to lie down, and moved my baggage into the house, which occupied me till the afternoon. During the whole time I had been compelled to watch my property like an Argus. Besides Smoke-jack, Dry Toast, Cockroach, Pot o' Beer, and Florence Nightingale, all of whom were tolerably accomplished thieves, I received visits from several villagers, who broke the tenth commandment every time that they looked at their neighbor's goods. Against these the manners of the country forbade me to shut my doors; but at that moment I looked back on "The Swan," in Swan Street, Shoreditch, and other tavern haunts of thievery, as temples of honesty in comparison. When all was brought into one room and piled round me, I laid down on the sofa. Some graceful young men entered playing on musical instruments. My landlord's head wife, when she saw that I had fever, brought me a cup of tea.