My visits to Mr. Walker first gave me the idea of making the negro describe his own character in a collection of purely Hamitic proverbs and idioms.  It appeared to me that, if ever a book aspires to the title of “l’Africain peint par lui-meme,” it must be one in which he is the medium to his own spirit, the interpreter to his own thoughts.  Hence “Wit and Wisdom from West Africa” (London, Tinsleys, 1856), which I still hold to be a step in the right direction, although critics, who possibly knew more of Cornhill than of Yoruba, assured me that it was “rather a heavy compilation.”  Nor can I yet see how the light fantastic toe can show its agility in the sabots of African proverbs.

Chapter VIII.

Up the Gaboon River.

Detestable weather detained me long at the hospitable factory.  Tornadoes were of almost daily occurrence —­not pleasant with 200 barrels of gunpowder under a thatched roof; they were useful chiefly to the Mpongwe servants of the establishment.  These model thieves broke open, under cover of the storms, a strong iron safe in an inner room which had been carefully closed; they stole my Mboko skin, and bottles were not safe from them even in our bedrooms.

My next step was to ascend the “Olo’ Mpongwe,” or Gaboon River, which Bowdich ("Sketch of Gaboon”) calls Oroongo, and its main point Ohlombopolo.  The object was to visit the Fan, of whose cannibalism such curious tales had been told.  It was not easy to find a conveyance.  The factory greatly wanted a flat-bottom iron steamer, a stern-wheeler, with sliding keel, and furnaces fit for burning half-dried wood—­a craft of fourteen tons, costing perhaps L14 per ton, would be ample in point of size, and would save not a little money to the trader.  I was at last fortunate in securing the “Eliza,” belonging to Messrs. Hatton and Cookson.  She was a fore-and-aft schooner of twenty tons, measuring 42 feet 6 inches over all and put up at Bonny Town by Captain Birkett.  She had two masts, and oars in case of calms; her crew was of six hands, including one Fernando, a Congoese, who could actually box the compass.  No outfit was this time necessary, beyond a letter to Mr. Tippet, who had charge of the highest establishments up stream.  His business consisted chiefly of importing arms, ammunition, and beads of different sorts, especially the red porcelain, locally called Loangos.

On April 10, a little before noon, I set out, despite thunder and lightning, rain, sun, torrential showers, and the vehemently expressed distaste of my crew.  The view of the right bank was no longer from afar; it differs in shape and material from the southern, but the distinction appears to me superficial, not extending to the interiors.  Off Konig Island we found nine fathoms of water, and wanted them during a bad storm from the south-east; it prevented my landing and inspecting the old Dutch guns, which Bowdich says are remains of the Portuguese.  Both this and Parrot Island, lying some five miles south by west, are masses of cocoas, fringed with mangroves; a great contrast with the prairillon of the neighbouring Point Ovindo.  At last, worn out by a four-knot current and a squall in our teeth, we anchored in four fathoms, about five miles south-east of Konig.