out on to the road, where I found my friend, the Alsatian
engineer, still flourishing and busy with his cheery gang of
wood-cutters. I made a brief halt here, getting some soda
water. I was not anxious to reach Victoria before nightfall,
but yet to reach it before dinner, and while I was chatting,
my boys came through the wood and the engineer most kindly
gave them a tot of brandy apiece, to which I owe their arrival in
Victoria. I left them again resting, fearing I had overdone my
arrangements for arriving just after nightfall and went on down
that road which was more terrible than ever now to my bruised^
weary feet, but even more lovely than ever in the dying light
of the crimson sunset, with all its dark shadows among the trees
begemmed with countless fire-flies— and so safe into Victoria
— sneaking up the Government House hill by the private path
through the Botanical Gardens.
Idabea, the steward, turned up, and I asked him to ■K me
have some tea and bread and butter, for I was dreadfully
hungry. He rushed off, and I heard tremendous operations
going on the room above. In a few seconds water poured freely
down through the dining-room ceiling. It was bath palaver
again. The excellent Idabea evidently thought it was severely
wanted, more wanted than such vanities as tea. Fortunately,
Herr von Lucke was away down in town, looking after duty
as usual, so I was tidy before he returned to dinner. When
he returned he had the satisfaction a prophet should feel. I
had got half-drowned, and I had got an awful cold, the most
awful cold in the head of modern times, I believe, but he was
not artistically exultant over my afflictions.
My men having all reported themselves safe I went to my
comfortable rooms, but could not turn in, so fascinating was
the warmth and beauty down here ; and as I sat on the verandah
overlooking Victoria and the sea, in the dim soft light of
the stars, with the fire-flies round me, and the lights of
Victoria away below, and heard the soft rush of the Lukola
River, and the sound of the sea-surf on the rocks, and the
tom-tomming and singing of the natives, all matching and
mingling together, “ Why did I come to Africa ? ” thought I.
W h y ! who would not come to its twin brother hell itself for
all the beauty and the charm of i t !
CHAPTER X X V III
THE ISLANDS IN THE BAY OF AMBOISES
Setting forth how the Voyager abandons a noble project, and luxuriates in
a port on account of the goodwill of the Viceroy of the Emperor of
Germany, with some account of this port, and its islands, and of
its foundation, and the futility of sanatoriums in this country, and
divers other matters ; ending in the safe return of the Voyager to
England.
It had been my intention when I landed at Victoria either to
procure a canoe and go round into that black mud mangrove-
swamp-fringed river the Rio del Rey, or to get the Ambas Bay
Trading Company to run me round to their trading station in
that river on their little steamer. Once in the Rio del Rey I
knew I could get a canoe to paddle me through the creek
into the Akwayafe river, a fourteen hours’ paddle. And then I
expected to be able to get up in a canoe to that remarkable
gentleman, Mr. Holmes, who, I was confident, would send me
round somehow into the Calabar, if I could only make him
hear that I wanted to go there.
Had the desire to get myself killed, with which I am constantly
being taxed, been my real and only motive for going
to West Africa, I should have rigidly adhered to this fine variegated
plan, all the more so, because Herr von Lucke said it
was highly dangerous during the tornado season to go in the
open and deep sea round from Victoria to Rio del Rey in a
canoe, because of the violent storms that sweep down suddenly
from the mountain and the unhandiness of the native craft.
He, with his abiding accuracy regarding statistics and detail,
said two in six native canoes so going, got lost with all hands,
and he added it would be better for me to go round to Calabar