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 41⁄2 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 71⁄2 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. 1⁄4 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 for this ‘palaver.’

Whilst Mr. Saker spoke to the people, I was pleased to find how much could be done by one wholly ignorant of the language, with the assistance of signs learned amongst the North American aborigines. Gestures have been well defined as the hieroglyphics of speech. If fate ever lead me back to Europe, and lend me leisure, I hope to make a further study of the subject in surdo-mute establishments, and to produce a system which may prove generally useful, especially to those beginning a foreign tongue. A hundred words easily learned in a week, 200 signs, and a little facility in sketching, would enable, I believe, a traveller to make his way through any country, even China, a few days after arrival.

But as neither eloquence nor gestures appeared to produce the least effect upon the mule-like Bakwiri, we suited the deed to the word, arose, and prepared for departure. It was now a treat to see the avidity of the savages as they peered over our shoulders into bag and box.[58] Botani and Myombi had many confabs.; many too were the confabs. of their followers. The great men at last retired under a plantain clump at the side of the village, and, eyeing our proceedings with the superiority of sarcasm, declared that we should never find the way, and that if we did our valuables must be abandoned. Our loads were for twenty-five men, of whom we had only fourteen. Presently all departed, leaving only the women, children, and four-footed animals in the village. Their conduct was eminently childish—African. They knew, poor worshippers of St. Belly, that they gained, and greatly gained, by being in our good graces; but they wanted more—in fact all—and not being able to get all, they would take nothing. We debated upon the propriety of recovering our ‘dashes;’ presently we resolved to leave them no ground for complaint. But before Europeans can travel about this country, the people must be taught to expect pay for service only, and be severely punished if they attempt their avanies.

A little after midday we sent forward up the Hill of Difficulty our first detachment under Messrs. Calvo and Saker, ordering the Krumen to return after finding a camping-place in the bush. The rest of us waited below with the remnant, doing watch and ward, and straining our eyes for the reappearance of the carriers. The distance was little more than a mile.[59] Yet 2 P.M. passed—then three—then four—we were beginning to fear some accident, and to dread the delay of a day; Dante himself could not walk in the Cimmerian night of an African _selva oscura_—when at 5 P.M. our truants heralded their approach with the Swiss-like Kru-cry ‘Ohyo! Ohyo! Hyo! Hyo-o-o!’ and presently appeared with flourishing matchets, skipping down the hill-path. They had lost the road when ascending, and had had a weary time.

Twenty minutes were consumed during the second loading; it reminded me of bygone hair-whitenings in East Africa. Only nine Krumen had returned, five having shirked duty. The strongest insisted upon loading most heavily the weakest: we reduced all the weight we could, still two loads lay hopelessly upon the ground. At that time, however, some of the humbler sort of villagers began to show, and amongst them ‘Balmat.’ The Grison professed inability to carry; he found for us, however, two youths, who, after the usual futilities—retiring to consult friends, demanding ‘ready-money’—and ‘cabbaging’ a finger’s length in the measurement—consented to accompany us, _moyennant_ two fathoms of satin stripe. One did his work manfully, and was rewarded with rum and extra pay; the other, who had prudently left his hire in his tent, resolutely refused after a few hundred yards to advance, nor did the muzzle of a gun thrust against his breast induce him to ‘budge an inch.’

‘Man,’ says the Arab proverb, ‘eats you; the desert does not.’ With a light heart, although the sun was casting shadows of portentous length, we stepped out of Botany Bay; ascended the grassy slope; passed sundry outlying huts, the highest human habitations on this part of the mountain; and crossing a tall stile found ourselves once more in the bush. The road was a copy of that leading to Mapanya; steep pitches, ladders of root and rock, ridges, hollows, and scrambling places, girt by tall grasses, and with a slippery moss-grown surface, where biting ants attacked us, and held on even after decapitation. The plantain- clearings presently ceased, and we saw the succulent tree no more. The nettles, so troublesome on Fernando Po Mountain, began in real earnest. There was one vegetable wonder, a giant of the forest, raised high above the earth upon aërial roots, like the conical spindles of the red mangrove. Several trees, the African cork for instance, affect a similar formation; but this surpasses them all in stature and exaggeration. The road was like Jordan, ‘a hard one to travel.’ As darkness was imminent, we saw a real light after having often been mocked by the fire-flies; we heard shouts above us, and presently the rested came down to assist the weary. I arrived at 6 P.M. Selim Aga and M. Mann put in an appearance shortly afterwards. Only one bag of rice had been left behind, and old ‘Balmat’ had promised to forward it on the morrow.

The camp was pitched with a refreshing ignorance of encamping. Its site was a steep, narrow ridge, with a slope of 15° and a chasm on both sides. Some twenty-four human beings were huddled together on a few square feet. The fire was built to leeward, and, as the cool night set in, fuel became scarce. It was too late to re-form. My attention was confined to the water-breaker; we had but one; the inhospitable villagers had refused to fill our others; and the nearest, indeed the only known spring, could not be reached before the evening of the morrow, if then. During the evening I made a chair of the precious breaker, and at night a pillow, determined that on such a vital occasion as this there should be no pilfering. Krumen, inhabitants of a maritime country where water abounds, are uncommonly impatient of thirst; some of them actually preferred a drink of the element to a dram, but these had probably been making free with our rum. They did not, however, neglect to ‘play’ in their usual style. An individual dances and addresses, in black man’s English, French, and Spanish, the circle of squatters, who reply in roaring chorus ‘Bateo’—‘Give way!’—and ‘O-e! O-e!’ These people suffer much from nostalgia; a drum and a horn should always accompany them on expeditions. Often when they are unable to perform a heavy task, one of their number dancing before them and singing a home ditty has surprised them into renewed exertion. The snorting and snoring of the Krumen, a ripping and rag-tearing noise, which awoke with awful echoes the stillness of the night, combined with a cup of strong green tea, whose pleasant intoxication is as exciting as that of ague and fever, caused me a sleepless night that told heavily upon the next day’s hard march.

Before dawn on the 22nd December we arose and addressed ourselves to our tasks. The Krumen received a ration of pork and biscuit and a mouthful of water each; they were unable to boil their rice, without which they rarely do a good day’s work. Hands being short, we determined to place some loads in deposit. The first detachment set out at 7·15 A.M., and soon returned to fetch the packs still lying in camp. After a quarter of an hour’s walk we deposited them in a hollow, marked by two dwarf parallel palisades of sticks with a heap of stones between, showing that large game had been killed there, a practice also common amongst the Fernandian Bube. We left behind two breakers, four heavy bags of rice, a case of liquor and coffee, and sundry tin specimen-boxes containing sundries. Such a _câche_ would not have baffled a Sioux for five minutes; here, however, we found it answer, and when safely encamped on the mountain we recovered all by sending down detachments of Krumen.

The march began at 8 A.M., up a rugged rise, wooded, with forest rather than with bush, and presently we debouched upon the fern region. It was fern, fern, everywhere. The valleys were filled with cyatheas, tree- ferns like palms, from ten to thirty feet high, surpassingly graceful and beautiful, especially when their delicate tracery was viewed from above, picked out by the golden rays of the sun. Others were little epiphytes (Trichomanes and _Dicksonia Selinifolia_) springing like moss upon the stems—miniature things hardly a foot long. There were beds of ferns resembling the common English variety, and others running creeper- like up the trunks, contrasting with the broad-leaved orchids based upon the boughs. Never has ‘rambler in search of ferns’ seen a more beautiful fernery, set off as it was by the grand tropical growth around. My companions were less struck; they had familiarized themselves with the spectacle at Fernando Po; moreover, on Camaroons Mountain the best sites are occupied by clearings and plantations, which is not the case with the Sister Peak. At this season, however, the asparagus of the Himalayas was too old for eating. The view was charming—

‘Summer winds about us blowing

Made a murmur in the land’—

but the path was vile, wet and muddy. After a good hour’s march we passed under an archway formed by cross trees, supported by others still standing. It was at once called Fern Gate. And beyond it we fell into a new country.

The bush and forest suddenly disappeared, as though by the work of woodmen, and, O joy! we emerged from the region of the clammy, dewy grasses that imprisoned us. The eye revelled over a broad field of lovely green, a dense mass of small moss and thick fern of a single species, _T. nephrolapis_, so called from its fructification. The base was a bed of old and degraded lava, much more modern, however, than any in Madeira, or even in the valley of Orotava. We were destined to trace this stream to its source, and it was palpably the oldest formation of the kind. We called it Lava Bed No. 1. The direction is from north to south, gradually bending at the end towards the E.S.E.; in fact, nearly fronting the north-east wind, which appears to be that prevalent upon the mountain. I conjectured that by following this bearing we could hardly fail to make the main source by the nearest line, and was not disappointed by my rude analogy. The breadth where we struck the outflow might be half a mile; below that point, however, the discharge, finding scantier slope, thinned out, spread, and possibly ceased to flow; at least we guessed so, from its ending in a forest which conceals from sight the sea, to which it extends. It is girt on both sides by a dense belt of trees, springing from a stiff yellow clay, the portions of the slope which the lava did not overflow. A B. P. observation gave us an altitude of 4535 feet, about 1000 feet above Snowdon and the Reeks of Kerry, and 800 feet higher than Vesuvius.

A hunter’s path was easily found; but careful stepping was required. Off the ‘spoor’ it was easy to sink up to the thighs. At 8·45 A.M. we had crossed the bed from S.S.E. to N.N.W., and we sat down under the farther skirting of wood. There we saw for the first time a blackberry, common at Fernando Po. This _Rubus apetalus_ is enumerated among the plants common to Abyssinia, the Mauritius, Bourbon, and Madagascar. Its fruit remarkably resembled the common English hedge growth.[60] Salvia scented the air; and the green surface was thinly spangled with blossoms; two species of fair white gnaphalium, and a shrub with scarlet brackets, unknown to our ‘botaniker.’ There was also heath, but rather of Madeiran than of Scottish dimensions; an ericanella, 15 feet high, thin and rugged as the tamarisk of Sindh. The lava, where very old, was thinly clad with a cryptogam, which we afterwards found extending to the very base of the grand peak.

The bees already began to make themselves felt. They are as abundant as in the upper regions of Fernando Po. Already, at Mapanya, we had seen in the hands of the villagers a dark and dirty comb: the savages ignore hives, even to the extent of the East African log. In the upper regions, where clover abounds, like the Retama (_C. nubigenes_) of Tenerife, to which the hives are yearly removed, the honey is excellent. The animals build in hollow trees, producing, after four days’ labour it is said, a delicious white honey, which is easily taken from them, even in the daytime. Our camp was infested by them: they seek moisture, and disappear in swarms before cold or wind, mist or night. The busy insect appears here, as at Fernando Po, unusually amiable, sociable, and stupid; and its rare stings were little more painful than those of the horse-fly. It is different in the plains of Africa. Mungo Park, in his last expedition, twice saw his caravan dispersed by swarms, and seven beasts killed. In the Eastern Regions I lost in one day three asses, and witnessed the capture of a village, by bees.

After a little food, of biscuit and ‘Europe mutton,’ the Band of Hope resumed its march at 9·50 A.M., under a sun becoming painfully hot. The fern presently waxed rare, and the surface became a mass of detached boulders, between whose treacherous sides leg and ankle easily came to grief, and lava-blocks thinly sprinkled with lichens, and dry grass. The path zigzagged across the old fire-stream, which was disposed in prismatic striated dykes, some a quarter of a mile, others a few yards, long, running parallel to the course; bluff towards the north, and tailing off southward. Many of these long, narrow axial ridges were sharp tipped, hardly a foot broad; and the highest might be 15 feet above the general level of the matrix. The appearance of these longitudinal markings suggested unequal cooling of the molten matter. The outer coating, exposed to the air, would naturally lose caloric, whilst the melted matter gravitates down the pipe or tunnel below. The roughness and angularity must also be the work of water and wearing down, the smoothing and rounding off of ice action being wholly wanting. Expecting to find at the edge of the stream a smoother path, made by the washings of the clay banks, I was disappointed: in that direction it was almost impassable. As we advanced we exchanged the miry boulders for bare and naked rock, which hardly showed the hunter’s trail; and the labour was greatly increased by repeatedly ascending and descending the ridges. The direction began towards the N.W., gradually winding to N.E. The wind was easterly; and as the great puffy clouds, half nimbus, half fog, and apparently pregnant with rain, sailed up from the S.W., where the horizon was obscured by inky cumulus, only the ragged ends passed over our heads, diffusing brief coolness, and shedding the priceless fluid in stingy drops, which one might have counted. Mr. Saker, who had taken charge of the water-breaker, prudently refused all applications. The Krumen, whose feet were scorched by the midday sun, began to lag behind: they had been provided with ammunition-boots, but, not having become by habit solidungulate, they could not use them without risking broken legs. Selim Aga remained to bring up the rear; and the party in advance now consisted of four Europeans and two bearers. There was no evidence of animals at this time, save man. A loud clamour in the nearer woods, followed by what seemed to be the tramping of men, caused me to draw my revolver and to make ready. After yesterday’s scene we certainly should have had an attack in East Africa. My companion’s posed look told me that it was a false alarm. It proved to be the chattering of monkeys, and their retreat among the tree-branches. I presently mistook some gaps in the vegetation for snow; and Mr. Saker once complained of a complete deafness. The fiery reflected heat was robbing us of our senses. Perhaps it was aided by the rarefied air. We were not, however, astonished throughout the exploration that we suffered so little from the inconvenience of which most travellers complain on Mont Blanc and the Rocky Mountains. Some would explain our immunity from mountain-sickness, or ‘puna,’ upon the Great Peak, only by the constant blowing of the violent east wind, which supplied our lungs with the requisite quantity of oxygen as fast as they could consume it.[61] I believe, however, the disease to be, like sea-sickness, merely the effect of disordered liver or stomach, often aggravated by stimulants, and by sudden and violent exertion.

Gradually we had edged towards the eastern side of the lava river, where in the high thick vegetation of the banks large black mossy stones appeared. Persuaded by the presence of a small bird—like the monkeys, they require drink—that the element must be near, I sent two Krumen to scrape the ground. It was wet immediately below the surface; and during the rains there must be a full gutter on each side of the lava-bed. The slope, however, is steep, and the drainage rapid. ‘No find water?’ we cried: the answer was, ‘Yes, sa!’—‘Yes,’ in Kruman’s English, being an affirmative confirming your negative, when the Englishman would say ‘No.’ Although our botanist had despaired of finding aught potable in the absence of succulent plants, Selim Aga, wiser by experience, squeezed from the moss half a gallon of dew, sufficient to boil water for the boys during the night.

After midday the march became, in the glaring, scorching, solar rays, a mere stumbling; we halted at least as much as we walked, and the alpenstock had a heavy burden to bear. In vain we shouted to the Krumen behind; not a sound was heard. The party was ‘hopelessly disintegrated.’ The seething heat seemed to wax more and more terrible; shoes showed signs of giving in,[62] and so did the wearers. At 2 P.M. we halted for a little refreshment—a crust of bread and a cup of water—what quintessence of nectar it was! We then resumed our way, which became even more rugged and precipitous as we neared the crater: it almost irks me to write about it. A mural precipice seemed ever to stand before us, and the figures in the van regularly disappeared as they topped the heights. The last third is rather a field than a bed; it was probably the latest gush, that had not power to flow on, but remained to cool and be weathered and degraded in jagged blocks, all realism and ugliness.

The sleepless night had told upon me. I found it impossible to keep my eyes open; something feverish and fiery ran through my veins. A sound sleep upon a lava-block till 4 P.M. relieved this sensation. On awaking, the prospect was not pleasant; not a soul was in sight. I had lost the trail, and nothing appeared around me but a tumbled sea of lava rising in front like a mountain wave. A bivouac seemed imminent. There were green spots under natural dry walls, where the gathering of water had produced a scanty growth of herbage. But without fire such a night would have ended in a very disagreeable morrow, which might have been called by the ‘cold name of accident.’

Fortunately, the surgeon of H.M.S. ‘Bloodhound’ had given me a ‘snake mixture,’ labelled ‘forty drops to be taken in water.’ Even without the element they enabled me to pass over the tangled surface of the stone- billows forming the ominous frontal wave of the stream, and to surmount the final overfall—a high abrupt transverse sea surging in massive rollers, and shutting out the view beyond. Looking from above, not usually a good _point de vue_ in hill countries, I could see the torrent of once fiery stone meandering down the hill between its banks of green, with here and there a step or ridge, transverse features in the longitudinal arrangement, as if the viscid mass had gathered at, before overflowing, some obstacle of ground. Of such places we counted in the ascent six. Beyond the seventh and last consecutive wrinkling of the lava deluge, distant about half a mile, and at the foot of a dwarf bowl, which, from its peculiar colour, we presently named Black Crater, stood my friends. They called to me—the voice travels far in these regions—that water was still distant an hour’s march, and they were requested to _passer en avant_. Presently M. Mann, accompanied by a Kruman bearing a breaker, disappeared behind the hills, and Mr. Saker disposed himself upon the ground. Their desire to advance under such circumstances appeared simple madness. They might have reached the water, but they would have left behind them Krumen and rations, tent and bedding, and slept in a wood more than 7000 feet above sea-level. M. Mann, acclimatized, and now accustomed to ascending West African mountains, had outwalked the whole party. He subsequently suffered severely for this evidence of superior vigour.

Beyond the last horrid lava-ridge of broken blocks, bristling up in all directions, the aspect of the land suddenly changes. Boulders and striæ disappear; the surface is a bed of scoriæ comminuted by the fierce action of the elements, and overgrown with moss and tussocks of dwarf grass, which showed signs of a late firing. After the continuous ascent since 8 A.M. a stretch over the smooth hollow was refreshing. I sketched on the way the Black Crater, whose outfall had caused us so much trouble. It is a truncated cone of considerable antiquity, not unlike the Montañeta do Frayle, near the town of Orotava, opening towards the south where the wall was broken. The altitude of the western or highest lip is 200 feet, or 356 along the slope. The circumference of the base is 600 yards, and the diametér of the bowl about 100. The outer surface is fine cinder, here bare, there dotted with tufts of grass and wilted shrubs; from a distance it looks exceptionally dark, from which circumstance it obtained a name. The interior contains a sparse green growth, and the internal northern wall shows scaurs of reddish rock. In places the lava appeared magnetic. Mr. Saker, who carried his ship’s compass in hand, remarked that on one occasion, when placed between the rocks, the north pole of the needle pointed to the south, and I noticed, besides a decided dip to the north, curious deflections in my own pocket-instrument. Our ascent of the lava had lasted from 10 A.M. to 4·30 P.M., 6 h. 30 m., of which half were spent in rest, and the distance little exceeded two miles,[63] which, however, we set down as, at the lowest estimate, five. The road was infamous, and worse for descent than for ascent; yet nothing could be easier than to make a highway as practicable as any street in Madeira. All the material is there, and a little zigzagging would render the slope easy. The height of our camp was found to be some 7000 feet, about that of Ootacamund, in the Neilgherry Hills.

We had pitched, however, again in a vile place, a dwarf plateau, brown and mossy, a few yards broad, and S.W. of Black Crater. Between the latter and a grassy neighbour on our north was a narrow gorge, that acted as conductor to the fierce north-east wind. The place was open to the west, where lightning flashed, and was exposed to all ‘skyey influences.’ By slow degrees the wearied Krumen began to drop in, bringing tent, bedding, and cooking-gear. Selim Aga, however, remained in charge of five lag-behinds, who had been too heavily loaded.[64] During twilight—it is longer here than in the plains, and the sun seems to set (a common mountain phenomenon) at a point 20° higher than one expects—M. Mann returned with a full breaker, which restored jollity to the camp. We ate the traveller’s supper, but we did not sleep the traveller’s sleep. At 5·45 P.M. the thermometer fell to 60° (Fah.), ruddying nose and hand. At 6·15 P.M. it showed 50°, and during the night it sank to 40°,—a severe trial to the constitution after 76° to 78° in the lowlands. It was a hard, dry, piercing cold, that seemed to mock at clothing. The bitter north-east gusts coursing restlessly down the ‘wind-loved’ gully caused cramps and shivering; the stony ground, sharp and sloping, made hip-bones ache. The fires were of course allowed to die out during the smaller hours, and the dew filtered into the waterproofs. There were points, however, in favour of the place; the air was pure, the water was deliciously cool, and the sand-flies, no longer measling our hands and faces, had remained below.

A lovely morning, the ‘Smile of God,’ when the wondrous disc of light

‘Retinged the dark and livid air with bloom,’

made ample amends for the deficiencies of the night. Before us, bearing S.W. 1⁄2 W., beyond a grassy hollow, about one mile broad, sinking with graceful slope into the lower forest, and then rising nearly to our level, the awful form of Little Camaroons rose to a point, without rival or neighbour. From this distance we could distinguish the platform which divides its height. The atmosphere around us was sweet and pure; we felt that we were breathing a purer æther, a diviner air. As the upper limb of the red light of day, apparently so large, flashed leaping up over the cinder-coloured head of Black Crater, it painted with every variety of its own hue, pink and red, orange and yellow, the pure fleecy clouds, whose huge volumes, at first white as cotton, and infinitely subdivided, soared up from the west. Most comfortable was their warmth as the rays bathed us. At 6 A.M. the thermometer had shown 48°, which is felt severely in these elevated tropical regions. Presently the globular balls of ‘woolpack’ began to surge up from the base of the blue giant in front of us, and twist like the smoke of a conflagration puffed up from the south-west, till all became broad plains of barren cloud. Around, everything was calm, serene, heavenly, except where three white men were sitting, journal in hand, and the shuddering Kruboys were bringing fuel from the lately charred trees. Again we sent forward the empty breaker to the spring, and received it full at 7·20 A.M.

Page 128.]

Whilst awaiting the estrays, we walked over the grassy hollow, and mentally surveyed the future Sanitarium. This would be the best locality for the highest part of the establishment. As has been seen, the road could easily be made practicable for mules and asses. The place itself is well sheltered from the wind, water is not distant, and timber begins a few yards below it. Comfortable quarters would of course be necessary during the raw and cold wet season that lasts from 1st May to the beginning of November: as will be presently seen the rains cannot be heavy, and I doubt not, indeed, that they are lighter than those of the Himalayas and Neilgherry Hills. From this height to nearly the base of the summit-cone all is clear and grassy, without gashes or ravines, except in the lava-beds, and a few hill-paths, as in the Neilgherry Hills, would make riding easy. The Camaroons Mountain has thus a grand advantage over the Fernando Po Peak, whose thick and tangled vegetation extends almost to the topmost crater. Clover also growing wild here, as at Fernando Po, where there are two species, cattle might be bred in abundance; and I have no doubt that most European vegetables, cereals, and fruits—apples, for instance, which grow 3000 feet above sea-level in San Thomé—could be made to flourish. The land is rich with its annual dressing of fallen leaves or decayed grass, and where the soil is a foot deep it is of the most fertile description.

As Selim Aga did not appear at 2 P.M., we left water and a Kruman guide, and proceeded towards our proposed camp. The path was a mere rut; the walk was pretty round the grassy shoulders and folds of various hills: above all was grass and rocks, below us a dense dark wood. We passed on our right a high broken crater, whose double effusion of lava from the N.N.E. to the S.S.W. converging at the base, enclosed a clump of emerald trees. In many places patches of a livelier green showed where water sinks during the rains. A few birds were seen, a kite sailing high in the air, and two butterflies, one white, the other yellow—it is astonishing the power of flight, in height as well as distance, which these frail creatures seem to possess. There was unmistakeable ‘sign’ of hyænas, which must be numerous. And here we saw for the first time the earths and hills of a rat (_Euryotis irrorata_, sp. nov.[65]), which cover the upper heights almost to the summit of the Great Cone. These animals dig long galleries, which appear to have two entrances. They were afterwards easily caught with the usual ingenious trap of the Krumen—like the Fernandians they show judgment in choosing the best positions—a flexible branch, bent to the ground by a cord with a terminal noose, well covered by leaves, and a trigger which is started by the tread when the animal steps inside to eat the grass or grain within the noose. The bodies are sometimes found suspended in the air and clenched so tightly round the middle that extravasated blood appears beneath the skin when stripped.

After forty-five minutes the path plunged into a wooded dell, a glade 2000 feet long, not unlike those about the Buenos Ayres ridge at Fernando Po, where we enjoyed cool shade, and an air perfumed by a garden of blue labiates and clematites hanging from lofty trees at the extreme end of large vegetation. Another quarter of an hour brought us, after a total march of 12⁄3 miles,[66] to ‘Mann’s Spring,’ and we felt grateful for the happy discovery: without this supply all our water must have been carried from below. Doubtless there are many similar formations, but the difficulty would be to find them. It is a pure cool runnel issuing from peaty earth at the foot of a small rock, and sinking into the dark brown humus beyond. It is embowered in flowering shrubs and nettles, with foliage narrower than the English species, that will supply us with a Scottish spinach.

A few yards of ascent beyond the water led to our camp, where the Krumen had cleared a slope for us, and had built for themselves leafy tabernacles. Shortly after our arrival we heard shouts and shots, and had the satisfaction of receiving Selim and his five ‘slow coaches’ safe and sound. The evening sped pleasantly at this altitude, about 7300 feet above the sea, and the night was comfortable. I had expected a heavy dew, and to my surprise a newspaper left out in the air showed in the morning no traces of damp. The atmosphere was cold, clear, and still, except after midnight, when furious gusts from the N., the N.E., and the N.W. swept round the cone (we called it Earthwork Crater), at whose base we were encamped, and after a turmoil of five minutes overhead, departed, leaving all as still as the grave.

[Footnote 38: It produces two crops per annum, each of twelve bunches, and every bunch fifteen nuts—a total of three hundred and sixty: so in India it is said the cocoa produces one nut a day. To show the value of the tree, each nut being worth five cents, it produces 18 dolls. = 3_l._ 6_s._ per annum.]

[Footnote 39: It extends about 700 feet above sea-level, and has many uses, being employed especially in building.]

[Footnote 40: Letter from M. Mann, in ‘Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnæan Society,’ above alluded to.

The brief notices of the flora of this interesting region are, I repeat, either borrowed from the paper above cited or collected in conversation with M. Mann. The extremely interesting nature of the subject must be my excuse for introducing so many ‘crackjaw names.’]

[Footnote 41: It is to be hoped, however, that future colonists will not, after a usual fashion, alter the place by wanton felling and burning from a forest dense to the other extreme—a bare and barren waste.]

[Footnote 42: So San Thomé, where servitude will expire after twelve years, expects nothing but ruination.]

[Footnote 43: It is a local habit to plunge the seed into boiling water. I bought a sack when ignorant of the practice, and was astonished to find it rotting in the ground. Curious to say, it is not to be had from the seedsmen in London.]

[Footnote 44: At present the plantain is almost as bad as the potato, formerly of so many uses; it supplies the people with food and drink, wine and water, cloth, thatch, rope, fuel, fodder, and perfume; and it can supply them with writing materials. I republish from the ‘Cavalla Messenger,’ the Missionary paper printed at Cape Palmas, an excellent description of plantain-planting:—

‘MR. EDITOR,—I take the liberty, in the following communication, to call the attention of your readers to the growth of the plantain for its fibre.

‘In the first place I would remark that it is easily cultivated. In preparing the ground for a crop in this country, we meet with one grand difficulty—the want of the plough and team. Yet this is less felt than in many parts of the world. The constant fall of rain in the growing seasons softens the ground, and conveys to the roots of plants the soluble parts of the decaying vegetable and mineral matter composing the soil as perfectly and thoroughly as if ploughed and otherwise cultivated by a team. But in the growth of the plantain we are less dependent on plough and oxen for success than in the management of most other crops. This is a fact very strongly recommending it to the attention of the farmer.

‘To put out a field of plantains the ground should be prepared much as it is for cassada-roots. The ground then should be laid out in rows about twelve or eighteen feet apart each way.

‘At the point crossed by these rows the soil should be thoroughly dug up, and a healthy root set in the centre. The plant usually does best when laid down so as to sprout from the side. This will give from three to four hundred plants to the acre.

‘For the first year or two, cassada, cotton, pepper, ginger, corn, arrowroot, sugar-cane, or some other crop, should be grown with it.

‘The third year will give seven suckers to each plant, which will make 2400 to 2800 stalks, with as many bunches of delicious, healthy, nutritious fruit. This gathered when fully ripe may be easily preserved for food or export. In England it takes the place of dried apple, and commands a price that will richly pay the farmer all the labour of cultivation and curing for market.

‘The process of drying is simple. The ripe fruit is laid in the hot sun on mats elevated from the ground. After it becomes wilted it is taken from the skin and replaced upon the mats till dry, when it is coated with sugar, like figs. This process might be shortened by kiln-drying.

‘The fruit when full grown, before the process of ripening commences, is very rich in starch, and when dried and ground makes an excellent meal. To make plantain-meal the plantain must be gathered when full grown. The skins must be removed with a bamboo-knife, so as not to discolour the fruit. Then cut in thin slices and dry in the sun, or on a kiln, which is better. When brittle grind into meal.

‘The fact that the fruit for home consumption or the foreign market will richly pay for cultivation is an item of importance. For this purpose is the plantain chiefly raised. The stalk is by many regarded valueless. Yet it is by the addition of a little labour worth 3_d._ a stalk.

‘An acre of well-matured thrifty plants will produce 6000 lbs. of fibre, at a cost in labour of 3_l._ per ton; and with an additional cost of 7_l._ per ton may be placed in an English market.

‘Plantain-fibre, after patient, varied, and repeated experiment, has been proved to be equal to hemp for all the purposes of cordage, and now commands the same price as good hemp, say from 30_l._ to 35_l._ per ton, giving a clear profit to the grower of more than 20_l._ the ton.

‘To convert the stalk into fibre, it is cut into lengths of three feet long and quartered. This should be done as quick as may be, so as not to black the fibre with the iron instrument used in cutting.

‘Furnished with a mill like a horizontal sugar-mill, having wood rollers four feet long and one foot in diameter, turned by horse-power, the quartered stalks are passed between the rollers longitudinally so as not to stain the fibre. Then the crushed stalks are washed thoroughly (which process separates the fibre from the pulpy matter of the stalks), and the fibre is hung on poles under a shade to dry. The sun discolours it.

‘When dry, it is combed or hackled, as flax or hemp, when it is fit for the market.

‘The tow or waste from the combing is beaten and prepared as half-stuff for paper at a cost of about 8_l._ per ton, and is worth as much as linen rags for paper, say from 16_l._ to 20_l._ per ton.’]

[Footnote 45: In Fernandian ‘Bube’ means a man, and ‘E Bube!’ is an address as favourite as the Spanish Hombre. Hence strangers undeservedly called the race ‘Booby.’]

[Footnote 46: The Dictionary of the Isubu language informs us that these charms, of which there are many with distinct names, are worn ‘to keep off evil spirits.’ As I have repeatedly explained, they are worn to keep them in, and they hinder them from wandering about doing harm, as the seal of Suleyman prevented the Jinn from leaving his prison-pit.]

[Footnote 47: So Garcie du Jardin says that certain American Indians placed snuff and pills of lime ‘_entre la lèvre de dessous et les dents_;’ in fact, where it most excites the salivary glands. Like the coffee-balls eaten by the Gallas of South Abyssinia, it prevents thirst and fatigue. These people have none of the succedanea for tobacco used by different wild races—potato-leaves, datura, solanum, hyoscyamus, belladonna, &c.]

[Footnote 48: More correctly 23,420 feet: the distances were taped on my return. In Appendix VI. I have given the elements of our observations for each altitude, which were calculated by Mr. George, of the Royal Geographical Society.]

[Footnote 49: This must not be confounded with Abo at the head of the Nigerian Delta. It is described as a congeries of townlets, like Abeokuta, under a powerful king, containing some 25,000 inhabitants, and having a radius of 4 miles: its direct distance from this point might be 45 miles. It is most easily reached by the ‘Yabiang’ water, a western influent of the Madiba ma Dualla or Camaroons Creek, and from the highest factory in the river it is distant 29 miles, including 4 of walking. In 1841 Captain Allen attempted to visit it, but failed. In 1849 Messrs. Saker and Pinnock succeeded; they were robbed, however, by the Yabiangs, at the instance of the Camaroons people, and escaped only with their lives.]

[Footnote 50: There is another settlement of the same name behind Mount Henry. I was unable to discover the exact meanings of this and other terms, but conjectured from analogy with other wild parts of Africa that they are the names of districts, not of chiefs, tribes, or villages.]

[Footnote 51: The head of tobacco, here worth about 6_d._, contains from ten to twelve leaves.]

[Footnote 52: The Galium aparine, a small rubiaceous plant, will vex us in high altitudes.]

[Footnote 53: ‘Little things’ here means matchets and mirrors, kerchiefs and blue baft, rum and tobacco. The fathom of cloth is also equal to 1_s._ At Fernando Po the musket costs 15_s._]

[Footnote 54: 40,720 feet along the very winding path.]

[Footnote 55: The shape was unknown to me; I found it, however, figured and described in the Muata Cazmbe of Captain Gamitto.]

[Footnote 56: This hoop shows the connection of the Fernandian ‘Bube’ with the coast tribes opposite. Other races, like the Krumen, ignore such means of ascent, and fell the tree.]

[Footnote 57: The bush-dog is I believe a small hyæna. The Krumen have a tradition that he and the house-dog are brothers. The latter preferred to the forest the society of man and the comforts of the hut, whilst the former, ever wandering over the hills, calls plaintively upon his relation to supply him with fire.]

[Footnote 58: Boxes are always bad, but botanists cannot do without them. M. Mann had seven tin cases, 20 inches long by 17 broad and 15 deep—about one-third less would have been better—and they were very heavy, containing wire-frames for India, packing-paper, and stout brown paper for drying specimens.]

[Footnote 59: Measured by tape along the road 6200 feet.]

[Footnote 60: When returning I observed that all the fruit had disappeared.]

[Footnote 61: According to Dr. James Hunt (‘Acclimatization of Man’) the European cannot live at a great elevation for any length of time in the Northern hemisphere; the natives of the Southern can. The highest inhabited spot in Europe is the Théodule Pass, between Wallis and Piedmont: it is temporary, and only 10,000 feet high; whereas Peruvians thrive permanently at 7000 to 12,000 feet of altitude. ‘This difference between the North and South hemispheres is caused perhaps by the difference in attraction at the North pole. In the Northern hemisphere the ascent of a high mountain causes a rush of blood to the head, and in the Southern there is an attraction of blood to the feet: hence the cause of the sickness felt on ascending a mountain in that hemisphere.’]

[Footnote 62: For this lava-walking the boots should have wooden soles. Mr. Mann completely destroyed two pair in as many days. For grass- walking on the upper heights, the Pyrenean spartelle, or the Spanish soldiers’ alpargetas, would be best.]

[Footnote 63: Measured it proved 11,570 feet. The total distance from Mapanya to the Black Crater was 20,080 feet, under 4 miles, and from Black Crater to Victoria 60,800 feet, under 10 miles.]

[Footnote 64: In such places 30 lbs. should be the maximum for fast walking, whereas many of the men carried 40 lbs.]

[Footnote 65: A specimen of it was sent to the British Museum, and described by Dr. Gray, Appendix IV.]

[Footnote 66: 9594 feet.]