Prince Paul, a youth of the Picaresque school, a hungry as well as a thirsty soul and vain with knowledge, which we know “puffeth up,” having the true African eye on present gain as well as to future “trust,” proceeded:  “Papa has at least a hundred sons,” enough to make Dan Dinmont blush, “and say” (he was not sure), “a hundred and fifty daughters.  Father rules all the southern shore; the French have no power beyond the brack and there are no African rivals,”—­the prince evidently thought that the new-comer had never heard of King George.  Like most juniors here, the youth knew French, or rather Gaboon-French; it was somewhat startling to hear clearly and tolerably pronounced, “M’sieur, veux-tu des macacques?” But the jargon is not our S’a Leone and West-coast “English;” the superior facility of pronouncing the neo-Latin tongues became at once apparent.  It is evident that European languages have been a mistake in Africa:  the natives learn a smattering sufficient for business purposes and foreigners remain without the key to knowledge; hence our small progress in understanding negro human nature.  Had we so acted in British India, we should probably have held the proud position which now contents us in China as in Western Africa, with factories and hulks at Bombay, Calcutta, Karachi, and Madras.

From Comte de Paris Roads the southern Gaboon shore is called in charts Le Paletuvier, the Mangrove Bank; the rhizophora is the growth of shallow brackish water, and at the projections there are fringings of reefs and “diabolitos,” dangerous to boats.  After two hours we crossed the Mombe (Mombay) Creek-mouth, with its outlying rocks, and passed the fishing village of Nenga-Oga, whence supplies are sent daily to the Plateau.  Then doubling a point of leek-green grass, based upon comparatively poor soil, sand, and clay, and backed by noble trees, we entered the Mbata River, the Toutiay of the chart and the Batta Creek of M. du Chaillu’s map.  It comes from the south-west, and it heads much nearer the coast than is shown on paper.

Presently the blood-red sun sank like a fire-balloon into the west, flushing with its last fierce beams the higher clouds of the eastern sky, and lighting the white and black plume of the soaring fish-eagle.  This Gypohierax (Angolensis) is a very wild bird, flushed at 200 yards:  I heard of, but I never saw, the Gwanyoni, which M. du Chaillu, (chapter xvi.) calls Guanionian, an eagle or a vulture said to kill deer.  Rain fell at times, thunder, anything but “sweet thunder,” again rolled in the distance; and lightning flashed and forked before and behind us, becoming painfully vivid in the shades darkening apace.  We could see nothing of the channel but a steel-grey streak, like a Damascus blade, in a sable sheathing of tall mangrove avenue; in places, however, tree-clumps suggested delusive hopes that we were approaching a region where man can live.  On our return we found many signs of population which had