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EXPLORATION AND ADVENTURE

IN

EQUATORIAL AFRICA.

CHAPTER I.

Purpose of my Explorations.-Facilities.-Nature of the Country to be explored.The Gaboon.-The Mpongwe People.-Their Jealousy of Travelers.-Trade Peculiarities.-Missionaries.-Baraka.-Manner in which the Missionaries teach.A day's Work on the Station.

I LEFT America for the western coast of Africa in the month of October, 1855. My purpose was to spend some years in the exploration of a region of territory lying between lat. 2° north. and 2° south, and stretching back from the coast to the mountain range called the Sierra del Crystal, and beyond as far as I should be able to penetrate.

The coast-line of this region is dotted here and there with negro villages, and at a few points "factories" have been established for the prosecution of general trade. The power and knowledge of the white man extend to but a very few miles from the coast, and the interior was still a terra incognita. Of its tribes, several of whom were reported cannibals, nothing was known, though terrible stories were told of their dark superstitions and untamable ferocity; of its productions only a rough guess could, be made from the scant supplies of ivory, ebony, bar-wood, and caoutchouc which were transmitted to the coast by the people inhabiting the river banks. Of the natural history, that which interested me most, sufficient was known to assure me that here was a field worthy of every effort of an explorer and naturalist.

This unexplored region was the home of the fierce, untamable gorilla, that remarkable ape which approaches nearest, in physical conformation and in certain habits, to man, and whose uncon

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querable ferocity has made it the terror of the bravest native hunters an animal, too, of which hitherto naturalists and the civilized world knew so little that the name even was not found in most natural histories. Here, too, in these dense woods, were to be found-if the natives told aright-the nest-building nshiego, an ape next in the scale to the gorilla; several varieties of other apes; hippopotami and manatees, or sea-cows, in the rivers; and birds and beasts of many and various kinds, many entirely unknown to us, in the forests and among the hills.

To ascend the various rivers, hunt in the woods, and acquaint myself alike with the haunts and habits of the gorilla, and with the superstitions, customs, and modes of life of the black tribes, who had not hitherto been visited by white men: this was one object of my present visit to the African coast. Another purpose I had in view was to ascertain if in the interior, among the mountainous ranges in which the rivers took their rise, there was not to be found a region of country fertile and populous, and, at the same time, healthy, where the missionaries, who now suffer and die on the low coast, could work in safety and to advantage, and where might be established profitable trading-stations, which would benefit alike whites and natives.

Several years' residence on the coast, where my father had formerly a factory, had given me a knowledge of the languages, habits, and peculiarities of the coast natives, which I hoped to find serviceable in my interior explorations, and had also sufficed to inure my constitution in some degree to the severities of an African hot season, or at least to familiarize me with the best means for preserving health and life against the deadly fevers of the coast. The Gaboon River, which takes its rise among the Sierra del Crystal mountains, empties its sluggish waters into the Atlantic a few miles north of the equator. Its mouth forms a bay, which is the finest harbor on the west coast; and here on the right bank the French formed a settlement and built a fort in the year 1842. It was under the protection of this fort that my father for several years carried on a trade with the natives, and here I gained my first knowledge of Africa and my first acquaintance with the Gaboon tribes.

When I returned now, after an absence of some years, my ar rival was hailed with joy by my former acquaintances among the blacks, who thought that I had come back to trade. The ne

THE MPONGWE.-TRADE.

27

groes of the west coast are the most eager and the shrewdest traders I have ever met; and they were overjoyed at the prospect of dealing with, and perhaps cheating, an old friend like myself. Their disappointment was great, therefore, when I was obliged to inform them that I had come with no goods to sell, but with the purpose to explore the country back, of which I had heard so many wonderful stories from them, and to hunt wild birds and beasts.

At first they believed I was joking. When they saw landed from the vessel which brought me no "trade," but only an outfit of all things necessary for a hunter's life in the African wilds, they began perforce to believe in my stated purpose. Then their amazement and perplexity knew no bounds.

Some thought I was out of my senses, and pitied my father, whom they all knew, for being troubled with such a good-fornothing son.

Some thought I had ulterior objects, and were alarmed lest I should secretly try to wrest the trade of the interior out of their hands.

These Mpongwes, or coast tribes, hold in their hands, as will be explained farther on, the trade with the back country of the Gaboon River; and the slightest suspicion that I was about to interfere with this profitable monopoly sufficed to create great terror in their trade-loving souls. They surrounded me, each with his tale of the horrors and dangers of a voyage "up the country," asserting that I would be eaten up by cannibals, drowned in rivers, devoured by tigers and crocodiles, crushed by elephants, upset by hippopotami, or waylaid and torn to pieces by the gorilla. But when I convinced them that I had no designs upon their trade, and that my purposed travels and hunts would not affect their interests, all but a few steadfast old friends left me to my fate.

As I intended to remain a little time on the Gaboon to more perfectly acclimate myself, I took up my residence among my friends of many years, the American missionaries, whose station. is at Baraka, eight miles from the mouth of the river. Here I found a welcome in the hospitable home of my friend, the Rev. William Walker, and was able to enjoy for a little while longer the comforts of civilized life and the consolation of a Christian social circle, which were soon to be left behind me for a long time.

Baraka is the head station of the American Board of Foreign

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