Round the black man's garden . of my ever-recurring attacks offever; and having booked phaces for Sierra Leone,we left Santa Cruz on Thursday the 7th of March,on board the Beno-uela. 21 BOOK YIIL THE LAND OF DEATH. The AVest Coast boats had always been painted to me in such gloomy colours that I had expected that I should now begin really to rough it, and was therefore very agreeably disappointed to find myself more comfortable than I had been in any ship since leaving England. The Captain, a dear old man, seemed to think everything would be too rough and uncomfortable for me on the West Coast
Round the black man's garden . of my ever-recurring attacks offever; and having booked phaces for Sierra Leone,we left Santa Cruz on Thursday the 7th of March,on board the Beno-uela. 21 BOOK YIIL THE LAND OF DEATH. The AVest Coast boats had always been painted to me in such gloomy colours that I had expected that I should now begin really to rough it, and was therefore very agreeably disappointed to find myself more comfortable than I had been in any ship since leaving England. The Captain, a dear old man, seemed to think everything would be too rough and uncomfortable for me on the West Coast, so he did his very best to make things on board as nice as possible. We had the large ladies-cabin, airy and with a big skylight, and which, with its good-sized table and berths, turning into sofas by day, was more like a sitting-room than anything we had yet seen on board ship. We always found it a cool and quiet spot, where we were able to spend many hours reading and writing. There was a o;reat mixture of nationalities on. THE BENGUELAS PASSENGERS. 279 board. Two young Belgians, who were on theirway to the Congo accompanied by a young Syrianinterpreter, Suliman, whom they always calledSalomon, a sly, thin, cringing, despicable piece ofhumanity, like most of his class. A Dane, whospoke English easily, and looked like a Eussian missionary with a kind intelligent face,who seemed full of the work he was about to under-take : he did not know a word of the lano^ua^e ofthe people among whom he was going, but said hewould very soon pick it up, as it had only takenhim six weeks to learn English, which he spoke asfluently as he spoke French and German. A red-bearded Englishman going out to Bonny as head-clerk in the telegraph office. An Irishman, who hadcome out as the ships doctor just for the trip. AFrench-Swiss. And last, but not least, a very short,fat man, who seemed to suffer very much from theheat, and who, we were told, was a German-Swisscalled Schmitt. From his c
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