On leaving the Niger (which is British, irrevocably British), fierce tornadoes drove us swiftly to Fernando Po, a lovely island covered with forests, over which rises a huge peak, much like the Peak of Teneriffe, and like it too, almost always lost in the clouds.  I anchored close in shore in an excellent haven, and seized the opportunity to send my crew to amuse themselves and do their washing on shore.  A pretty stream, which tumbled in one waterfall after another through the masses of tropical growth, was soon the scene of numerous laundry operations, in which all the negresses in the neighbourhood insisted on joining, incited thereto no doubt by the desire of seeing how my four hundred strapping fellows set about their work.

[Illustration with caption:  Citizen of Fernando Po.]

From the top of the hill to its foot there rose one great Africo-European shout of laughter and shriek of delight, which it was a downright pleasure to listen to.

Officially speaking, Fernando Po was a Spanish possession But not a single Spaniard lived on the island, and no Spanish flag floated over it.  The English indeed had landed several cargoes of their “liberated Africans” on it, and an individual, whether official or not I cannot tell, had also come to govern them.  He had built himself a comfortable house, before which he had planted a flagstaff, from which the Union Jack waved.  After a time he had assumed the style and title of governor, and I was requested to call on him as such, which I absolutely refused to do.  On my return to Europe, chancing to meet Comte Bresson, our ambassador in Spain, I mentioned the state of matters at Fernando Po to him, and soon after received a letter from him from Madrid, in which he told me the Spanish Government had just despatched a warship to retake possession of the island.  It was well worth while, for if the British Niger, the German Cameroons, and the French Gaboon are some day to develop commercially and colonially, as they seem to give promise of doing, Fernando Po, with its insular position, its comparatively healthy climate, and its excellent anchorage, lying as it does at an equal distance from the three centres of activity, cannot fail to become a most important place both from the commercial and the military point of view.

I speak of the French Gaboon.  It was not French at the time of my visit, but it was soon to become so.  We had important commercial interests there, and the idea of forming a colonial station was already entertained.

Commander Bouet, who had preceded me on the coast, had taken his gunboat up the river, and had earnestly pressed me to do the same thing with the Belle-Poule, so as to prove its navigability for the largest ships, which, once acknowledged, would stamp it as a first-class naval station.  I resolved to make the attempt, though I had no charts, no levels nor surveys, and the low shores offered no landmarks nor distinctive signs, not even a tree to guide one.  Bouet had merely warned me that there were dangerous sandbanks to be avoided.  “Pooh! you’ll find your way amongst them all right.”  And so we did indeed, but it was a regular voyage of discovery.