ABSTRACT
Leaving Bordeaux by Messageries Impériales, I arrived at the French garrison town of Dakar, on the Great Sahara, after an agreeable and luxurious voyage of some twenty days. I put up at the hotel of J. E. Buhan Père, Fils, and Teisseire, and, whilst their obliging maitre was seeing to the landing of my baggage, and its passing through the douane, his chef was preparing a sumptuous breakfast, which I and some fellow-passengers, who were on shore whilst the steamer was coaling, enjoyed in true Oriental style amid bubbling fountains and shady palms, in the enclosed courtyard. The cool and shade of this fragrant bower was so delicious that we were able to dispense with the services of the Nubian punkah wallah, whose arm had begun to swing with that lazy but clock-like regularity so well known to the European in tropical climes.
