Creek Navigation.

CHAPTER XI.

Nocturnal Habits of the Negroes.-A royal Farm.-Beachtravel.-Canoe-building.-Ogoula-Limbai.-A great Elephant-hunter.-In the Surf. Shark River.—Prairies.—Sangatanga.—King Bango.-An Audience of Royalty.-A Ball.-Barracoons.-Unwelcome Guest.-A Slaver in the Offing.Decline of the Slave-trade on this Coast.-Idols.

My stay in Gaboon was only long enough to enable me to secure my specimens and send them on, and to prepare myself for a trip to Cape Lopez. I was anxious to see for myself the barracoons of the slave-traders, as well as to hunt the wild buffalo, which is found in great numbers on the prairies of that part of the interior.

When all was ready, I placed all my goods, and guns, and ammunition in one of the immense canoes which the Mpongwe make, and we started for Mbata Creek, on which lay the plantation of my old friend King Rompochombo, or Roi Dennis, as the French call him.

We entered the Mbata Creek at four P.M., and paddled up and up, the stream growing narrower all the time, and more overhung with trees, till about midnight the men had to pull the canoe through the brushwood, which made more swamp than creek. This brought us pretty soon to where there was no more creek, and then we found ourselves on the royal plantation.

My baggage was immediately taken to the king's first wife's house. Though so late, or rather now getting early, the people were not asleep. It is a singular habit the Africans have, and very like the highest class of society in our own cities-they do not sleep at night, but lie about their fires and smoke and tell stories, dozing off all day afterward. I was not surprised, therefore, to find the Princess Akerai lying, with three or four other women, near a huge fire (the thermometer was at 85°) smoking her pipe, and saying she was glad to see me.

However, all was busy in an instant. The princess hurried off to cook me some plantains and fish which her slaves were preparing, and which I greatly enjoyed, for our day's journey had

made me hungry. A fire was built in the centre of the floor of the house which I was to occupy, and around this several of the king's wives assembled, while the queen busied herself in preparing a corner for my sleeping accommodations. For bed I had a mat simple enough, but not so hard for the bones as the bamboo couch I had enjoyed at Mbene's; and there was added to my mat, in this case, the unusual luxury of a musquito netting, by help of which I was able to enjoy a good sleep.

The negroes are very hospitable and kind, but generally very poor and dirty. However, it does not seem dirt to them; and as for their poor half-starved lives, they enjoy them as though no misery was in the world; till death or great distress comes, and then their sorrow is something terrible-literally a sorrow without hope.

King Rompochombo's people are among the most thriving of the Mpongwe. The plantations where I now was belong to them, and are the most flourishing I saw any where on the coast. The village, which lies at the head of the Mbata Creek, is surrounded by a fertile prairie, which was now in full cultivation. The people have a great many slaves, and the women seem really to have a taste or liking for agricultural operations—perhaps because in their Gaboon villages they have before them only Sandy Point, a long sandy flat, where nothing will grow. Here I saw on every hand, and for several miles in all directions, fields of ground-nuts, plantains, corn, sugar-cane, ginger, yams, manioc, squash (a great favorite with all the negroes); while near their little huts were growing the paw-tree, the lime, the wild orange, together with abundance of plantains and pine-apples. The life of peaceful industry they led here really gave me a high opinion of this little nation, who have greater persistence in this direction than any of their fellows I have seen. They seemed even to care for animals, for every where I saw goats, and the diminutive African chickens.

The king was at his town on the coast, but had given orders to have me forwarded on to Cape Lopez, Sangatanga, the chief town of the Cape, being about sixty miles from Mbata. The king gives himself no trouble about this beautiful plantation, and visits it only during the dry season. Indeed, I suspect that he has little authority there, the queen ruling supreme, managing every thing, and ordering the labor of the slaves and the succession of the agricultural operations. Occasionally she sets her own hand

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to the planting, which is the labor of the women, the men cutting down and burning the bushes, which spring up with such terrible rapidity wherever the African soil is left for a season untouched.

As I intended to spend some months in the Cape Lopez coun try, I had brought from Gaboon a very inconvenient quantity of luggage, which was to be transported overland to Sangatanga from here, Mbata being the head of navigation in this direction. To carry my three heavy chests of trade-goods, 200 pounds of coarse powder, half a hundred-weight of tobacco, 50 pounds of shot, three double-barreled guns, together with hams, boxes of crackers, bottles of wine, brandy, and oil, woolen blankets for camping, and camp cooking utensils (I never dared to eat food cooked in the native pots, from a fear of what was in them before) -to carry all this required some thirty men. These I asked the queen for next morning, saying that I would give each man five fathoms of cotton cloth, some beads, and tobacco. She made no difficulty, but, of course, several days were required to get every thing ready for a start.

Finally all was prepared, and we started. Our way led us for ten or twelve miles of fine prairie, interspersed with occasional hills, and making altogether a beautiful country for agriculture. South of the Gaboon the country changes very much, and is generally less rough, and better adapted to the growing of yams and other farm products than any I saw to the north. Here, as we traveled along, we came occasionally upon the bamboo huts of slaves who lived here, far away from their Mpongwe masters on the coast, and tilled the soil on their own account, sending a tribute of its products down to the sea-side whenever canoes came up the Mbata for it. They seemed quite happy, as they were certainly independent, for slaves. The old men and women lay lazily in front of their little huts smoking; and on every hand were smiling fields of plantains, manioc, peanuts, and yams.

Toward twelve o'clock we approached the sea, and could hear the distant boom of the surf. Presently the sky, before clear, became overcast, and before long we were in the midst of a wild storm-almost a tornado. It thundered and lightened violently, and rained as it rains only in Africa. We rushed for a little hut we saw before us, and were kindly received by an old negro and his wife, who lived there. In about an hour all was over, and the sky was again clear. These storms are frequent here in

the season, and sometimes do much damage, tearing down trees, and overwhelming the plantations in ruin.

Half an hour's walk brought us to the beach, along which we now had to walk. The soft sand made our travel exhausting; I was forced to take off my shoes, as I sank down above my ankles at every step. This lasted the whole day, and I was glad when night came and we stopped. My men bore it better than I, though they had heavy loads to carry. Though our walking was bad, the scenery was often very fine. On one side was the rolling sea, and on the other the dark-green forests, coming down in seemingly impenetrable masses nearly to the shore. Every mile or so a creek cut its way through this mass of green, and wound its devious course into the interior, having a curious appearance -canal-like-from the way in which the vegetation began on the very banks, in the same solid masses which presented their fronts seaward. It was a real solitude, the roar of the sea breaking the grim silence of the forest only to make that more impressive. From time to time we recognized the lonesome cry of the chimpanzee, who is the chief inhabitant of these wilds.

Just at sunset we came upon a beautiful little prairie or natural clearing set right into the middle of the woods, and received an unexpected welcome from the owner of some huts we saw in front of us. He proved to be a Mpongwe named Mbouma, whom I had known at Gaboon. He had come hither to spend the dry season in making canoes, the trees surrounding his little clearing being of unusual size. He had chosen for the scene of his labors one of the prettiest spots I ever saw in Africa. The little prairie was a mile long by perhaps one third of a mile wide, perfectly clean, and covered with a luxuriant growth of grass, which, when the sun lay on it next morning, shone with a golden glory. The very beasts of the forest seemed to rejoice in its prettiness; monkeys leaped nimbly along the trees on its skirts, and the song of the birds in the morning gave a charm to the whole scene which few of the African wilds can boast.

Mbouma had moved hither temporarily, but with his whole family, wives, children, and slaves. They had built temporary shelters, rude but sufficient leaf-roofed huts, and lived in a kind of extended picnic. He showed me some immense trees he had cut down, and which were intended for canoes. Several of these vessels were already completed and ready to launch. A Mpongwe ca

A MPONGWE BOAT-BUILDER.

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noe is sometimes of very considerable size. Mbouma had one finished, which was 60 feet long, 34 feet wide, and 3 feet deep. The process of canoe-building is very simple. The tree is felled, cut to the requisite length, divested of limbs, if any are in the way, and then fire is applied to burn out the inside. This fire is carefully watched and guided till all the inside is eaten away. Then the mpano, the native adze, is used to trim all off neatly, and to give shape to the outside. They know very well how to do this; and their larger canoes are very stout and reliable craft, in which considerable coasting voyages are sometimes made. Unfortunately the making of the canoe is mostly the least part of the work. The canoe-tree (for only one kind of tree is used for this purpose) grows almost invariably some miles away from the water, and the unlucky boat-builder's greatest undertaking is the launch. Often they have to transport a sixty-foot canoe eight or ten miles overland to the nearest creek or river. In this case they cut a path through the woods, and on this lay rollers at two feet apart, on which, with much trouble, the little vessel is pushed along.

Mbouma was very fortunate in his choice of locality. His farthest canoe was but two miles from the sea-shore, and he thought his labor easy enough. But he was forced to send all his canoes by sea to the Gaboon.

Little prairies like this of Mbouma's occurred constantly between this and Sangatanga, and gave me a good opinion of the value of this country for purposes of civilized life. They were great reliefs to the dreary journey.

We continued to skirt the sea-shore, our aim being to gain a Shekiani village where we purposed to stop the night. In the forenoon I shot a beautiful black and white fishing-eagle (the Gypohierax angolensis), which sat at the very top of a huge cottonwood-tree looking gravely down into the blue sea below, meditating its finny prey.

At three o'clock we reached a village where the chief, OgoulaLimbai by name, turned out to meet us at the head of his whole nation, which consisted of thirty men, sixty or seventy women, and a prodigious number of children. I was welcomed and conducted to a house-a real house-the most convenient and substantial I had met among the wild negroes. It was high, had a plank floor, and was really wonderful for a savage chief's abode.