more of this tramway. A large surf-boat was being laden
with its rails, and as it persisted, owing to the long heavy
swell, in playing bob cherry with every bundle of them, the
time came when the man at the winch “ came back a bit
suddenly instead of “ softly, softly ” as he had been carefully
ordered to do. This happened when the boat was
nearly laden, and one of the bundles of rails hanging on the
■chain swung round and speared that lively surf-boat right
through. .
A scene of some excitement followed, accompanied, by a
perfect word-fog of directions and advice. The chain was
hastily lowered into the boat and put round bundles of rails
which were as hastily hauled back on to the Batanga s deck,
but still the boat with the balance of the rails continued sinking,
and her black crew when they realised this went “ for
water one time” and swam round at a respectful distance so
as to avoid the coming down suck, in spite of being most
distinctly requested to return to the boat and sling rails like
fury. Then Captain Murray came upon the scene and rose
to the occasion, ordering ropes to be passed bodily under
the boat and round her in such a manner that she was held
up whether she would or no, until she was unloaded. Then
she was hauled on deck and repaired during the rest of the
voyage by my old friend the Portuguese carpenter, although
he announced himself as “ suffering from rheumatism under
the influence of the doctor.”
The Gold Coast is one of the few places in West Africa
that I have never felt it my solemn duty to go and fish in.
I really cannot say why. Seen from the sea it is a pleasant-
Jooking land. The long lines of yellow, sandy beach
backed by an almost continuous line of blue hills, which in
some places come close to the beach, in other places show
in the dim distance. It is hard to think that it is so unhealthy
as it is, from just seeing it as you pass by. It has high land
and has not those great masses of mangrove-swamp one
usually, at first, associates with a bad fever district, but
which prove on acquaintance to be at any rate no worse than
this well-elevated open-forested Gold Coast land. There are
many things to be had here and in Lagos which tend to make
life more tolerable, that you cannot have elsewhere until you
are south of the Congo. Horses, for example, do fairly
well at Accra, though some twelve miles or so behind the
town there is a belt of tsetse fly, specimens o f which I
have procured and had identified at the British Museum,
and it is certain death to a horse, I am told, to take it to
Aburi.
ON A GOLD COAST BEACH.
to 1 ™ altnOUgil bad and dear> i s superior
■ O t i f ? Se1- down south- Goats and sheep are fairly
f c ntiful. In addition to fresh, meat and tinned you are
able to get a quantity of good sea fish, for the great West
■ffncan Bank, which fringes the coast in the Bight of Benin
| abounds in fish, although the native cook very rarely knows
how to cook them. Then, too, you can get ^ fruit