ABSTRACT
WE lay at Akassa nearly a week discharging salt, partly because many of the Krooboys we had brought from Liberia were unused to the work and took much longer than they should have done. One sweltering Sunday I remember we went inland through the bush, to visit the site of a native village burned by some one connected with the Company, because its inhabitants were believed to have either slain fllgitives from the sack of the factory or taken a part therein. I was careful to lace thick leggings over my light duck garments, because there are Inany creeping things whose Lite may mean amputation lurking among the undergrowth of the African bush, not the least of which is a venomous spider. The river was blinding bright to look upon, the fierce rays burned down through_ the double crown of a sun-hat, turning one sick with heat, and we were thankful to enter the steamy shade of the forest. At first the tall harsh grass grew waist-
high, and here a few feathery oil-palms and smaller cocoanut-trees spread their curving fronds above our heads. Then the grass gave place to a confusion of vines and thorns springing up out of earth that waa spongy, hot, and steaming, and the palms to giant cotton-trees, 200 feet and more from the buttresses which support the mighty trunks to topmost spray. Festoons of creepers trailed from above, white lilies grew up among the flanged roots, while the atmosphere was that of a giant hothouse, soured with the rankness of rotting leaves. After a march of half an hour or so we reached our destination, and the scene was typical of the Niger delta. A narrow clearing lay between the wall of forest and a muddy creek, and about it were the fragrant and snowy blossoms of oranges and limes, the pale-green leaves of bananas, and the vine-like trailers of the sweet potato. In the centre lay a strip of hard-trodden earth strewn with the wreckage of huts, and ringed by blackened ashes, and a wrathful gro"\vl rose up at our approach. A score or two of 11ig men, of the Brass race, with chests and arms splendidly developed by labour at the paddle, were busy re-erecting the huts. Their hair was knitted up into mallY corkscrew plaits, their oily skin-and the majority wore little else upon it-was covered with devices in blue tattoo standing out ill high relief, and both matchets and flintlock guns lay close at hand. Women in the fashions of Eden were hurrying here and there with
bundles of palm leaves and reeds in their hands, and the work of rebuilding seemed to be going on apace. It is little punishment to destroy a West African village, for the river-man can replace it in less than a week. Signs were not wanting that the workmen regarded us with a disfavour that might prove dangerous; but a promise of several bottles of gin induced the coloured guide to explain our general harmlessness, and after the headman had been assured that none were servants of the Company we were permitted to inspect their work.
