the deck his socks and hats and boots just anyhow, and over
all and everything was a coating of wet coal-dust. On the
little lower deck were the unfortunate native passengers. They
were silent, which with native passengers means sick, and every
rag they possessed was wringing wet. Rats ran freely about
everywhere, and from out of the black patch of silence on the
main deck rose no sound save Mrs. S.’s Chei! Chei! Chei!
o f disgust and disapproval of her surroundings. The
kindly German captain (for the Eko belonged to a great
German trading firm in Lagos, and not to the steamboat
companies) did all he could to make me comfortable, and the
Government official pointed out to me objects of interest on
the distant shore: the lighthouse, the Government House, the
Wilberforce Hall, and so on, but particularly the little Government
steamer which, he observed, was getting up steam to be
ready to take him up river early in the morning. He seemed
to think they were beginning rather too early, as the Government
are vigilant about the sin of wasting coal. As the afternoon
wore away, our interest in the coming of the Benguella
grew until it surpassed all other interests, and the Benguella
became the one thing we really cared about in life, and yet she
came not. The little Eko rolled to and fro, to and fro, all the
loose gear going slipperty, slop, crash ; slipperty, slop, crash :
coal-dust, smuts, and a broiling sun poured down on us quietly,
and the only thing or motion that gave us any variety was
every three or four minutes the Eko making a vicious jerk
at her anchor. About six o’clock a steamer was seen coming
up into the roads. The experienced captain said she was not
the Benguella, and she was not, but the Janette Woermann, and
as soon as she got settled, her captain came on board the Eko,
o f course to ask what prospect there was of cargo on shore.
He appeared as a gigantic, lithe, powerful Dane clad in a
uniform of great splendour and exceeding tightness, terminating
in a pair of Blucher boots and every inch of his six feet
four spick and span, but that was only the visible form— his
external seeming. W hat that man really was, was our two
guardian cherubs rolled into one, for no sooner did he lay eye
on us— the depressed and distracted official and the dilapidated
lady— than he claimed us as his own, and in a few more
minutes we were playing bob cherry again with Lagos Bar
sharks, going down into his boat by the Eko’s rope-ladder.
Were I but Khalif of Bagdad, I would have that captain’s
name— which is Heldt— written in letters of gold on ivory
tablets with a full and particular account of all he did for us.
No sooner did he successfully get us on board his comfortable
vessel, than he gave me his own cabin on the upper deck
and stowed himself in some sort of outhouse alongside it, which I
\ observed, when going out on deck during the night to see if that
I Benguella had come in to the roads, was far too short for him.
I He gave us dinner with great promptitude— an excellent
i dinner commencing with what I thought was a plateful of hot
: j am> but which anyhow was nice. Indeed so reconciled did I
become to my environment that my interest in the coming of
the Benguella hourly waned, and had it not been for my having
Bjpught a sense of worry about “ the way coals were being
I wasted ” on the Government boat inside the bar, I should have
forgotten the South-Wester. Not so my companion. You
cannot distract a man from the higher duties and responsibilities
of life so easily. His mind was a prey to the most
Idismal thoughts and conjectures. He regretted having come
out on the Eko, although his motive to see how she would get
across the bar at low water was a noble one and arose from
the nature of his particular appointment, and not only did he
regret that, but remembered, with remorse, all the other things
jhe had done which he should not have done. Captain Heldt
did his best to cheer him and distract him from the
contemplation of these things and the way coal was being
■wasted on his account inside the bar. The captain offered
■him suits of his own clothes to change his sopped ones for •
HE 11 i C Said he WaS lost enough already without getting
into clothes of that size. Lager beer, cigars, and stories were
fthen tried on him, but with little effect. He took a certain
amount of interest in the captain’s account of how he had
had his back severely injured and had had to navigate his
of Saint Ann while lying fn great
and ilso in th SH “ S'S F the Grain Coast surf>
had had b ro k 7 an°US aCC°UntS ° f br°ken in various ways o*n* t he higrhib ss etahse, bCuatP taaniy"