At 5 P. M. we weathered Point Dyanye, garnished, like Nyonye, with a threatening line of breakers; the boat-passage along shore was about 400 yards wide.  Darkness came on shortly after six o’clock, and the sultry weather began to look ominous, with a huge, angry, black nimbus discharging itself into the glassy livid sea northwards.  I suggested landing, but Langobumo was positive that the storm had passed westwards, and he objected, with some reason, that in the outer gloom the boat might be dashed to pieces.  As we had not even a stone for an anchor, the plea proved, valid.  We guided ourselves, by the fitful flashes of forked and sheet lightning combined, towards a ghostly point, whose deeper blackness silhouetted it against the shades.  Suddenly the boat’s head was turned inland; a huge breaker, foaming along our gunwales, drove us forwards like the downwards motion of a “swing-swong,” and, before we knew where we were, an ugly little bar had been crossed on the top of the curling scud.  We could see the forest on both sides, but there was not light enough to trace the river line; I told Hotaloya to tumble out; “Plenty shark here, mas’r,” was the only answer.  We lost nearly half an hour of most valuable time in pottering and groping before all had landed.

At that moment the rain-clouds burst, and in five minutes after the first spatter all were wet to the skin.  Selim and I stood close together, trying to light a match, when a sheet of white fire seemed to be let down from the black sky, passing between us with a simultaneous thundering crash and rattle, and a sulphurous smell, as if a battery had been discharged.  I saw my factotum struck down whilst in the act of staggering and falling myself; we lay still for a few moments, when a mutual inquiry showed that both were alive, only a little shaken and stunned; the sensation was simply the shock of an electrical machine and the discharge of a Woolwich infant —­greatly exaggerated.

We then gave up the partie; it was useless to contend against Jupiter Tonans as well as Pluvialis.  I opened my bedding, drank a “stiffener” of raw cognac, wrapped myself well, and at once fell asleep in the heavy rain, whilst the crew gathered under the sail.  The gentlemen who stay at home at ease may think damp sheets dangerous, but Malvern had long ago taught me the perfect safety of the wettest bivouac, provided that the body remains warm.  At Fernando Po, as at Zanzibar, a drunken sailor after a night in the gutter will catch fever, and will probably die.  But he has exposed himself to the inevitable chill after midnight, he is unacclimatized, and both places are exceptionally deadly—­to say nothing of the liquor.  The experienced African traveller awaking with a chilly skin, swallows a tumbler of cold water, and rolls himself in a blanket till he perspires; there is only one alternative.