by an admiring group, consisting of all the
children, and most of the women in the town.
At every mouthful I took they uttered a
prolonged shout of Mah-wow! My position
was uneasy. The spectators evidently
expected more from the entertainment than I
was inclined to afford them, and showed
marked disapprobation at the abrupt manner
in which I brought it to a conclusion.

Meanwhile the bearers had consumed
kaukey (unleavened maize bread) and rum,
and were content. So we started again; and,
about an hour's walking, brought us to the
beach. I got into the hammock and slept
until we came to the mouth of a river, where
I had to fire my gun as a signal for a canoe
from the other side to come off and fetch us.
As we were waiting, I saw a large falcon
sailing overhead; so I let him have the other
barrel, but he took no notice of it, disdained,
in fact, to fly away. He merely took a wide
swoop, by which he got some fifty yards
higher up, then balanced himself on the wing
immediately over my head, and looked down
in a very unconcerned manner. But I had laid
down my double-barreled gun, and put a cap
on my Kentucky rifle, and taken a careful aim.
A whisper from Kentucky proved sufficient;
down he came, fanning the air first with one
wing and then with the other till he fell at
last with a heavy thump on the sand. He
was a splendid fellow. The hammock-bearers
all set up a shout, " "Wahi-hi-hi! Akroma
eboo! "—(The hawk is dead). Then, turning
to me, " Oyez, papa oyez! "—(Good, very
good).

In the evening we reached the
Ogbomoshaw river. It was the dry season, and
the mouth was completely stopped by a sandbank
between two and three hundred yards
in width, thrown up between the river and
the sea. Indeed, I passed along the beach
without even knowing that we were near a
large river.

When the mouth is thus stopped,
Ogbomoshaw overflows the low lands on its
banks, and is frequented by vast quantities
of wild fowl of every description. A shooting
excursion with a friend enabled me, a
few months later, to explore its beauties,
which I shall hereafter describe.

I found my friend, the Commandant of
Ogbomoshaw, in the greatest distress. He
had come out from England some months
previously, a young man of great courage
and considerable abilities, but knowing
nothing of the country, the nature of its
resources, and the difficulties with which he
would have to contend. This was sufficiently
proved by his bringing with him a young
wife, a young baby, and an English servant.
If they had spent a few weeks at Oke Amolo,
or any other station at which there are a few
resident English, we could have prepared
him for what was before him, and should
have advised his sending back the wife, baby,
and servant by the next mail. For English
women cannot live on the West Coast; they
die— at least, all the young women do—like
our English horses, a few months after their
arrival. Sometimes a young officer comes
out, and is followed or is accompanied by his
young wife. We welcome her as a representative
of her most gracious Majesty, we fire
a royal salute in her honour, we subscribe
together to hang pictures on the bare walls
of her apartments, and to decorate them
with every attainable ornament. We give
in her honour balls, pic-nics, and dinners,
and her slightest wish is a command not to
be lightly disregarded. Yet the remorseless
fever seizes her. She pines away; and, in a
few months, we follow her sadly to the little
graveyard.

My poor friend at Ogbomoshaw was
absolutely alone. I, fifty miles distant from him,
was his nearest English neighbour. The
men under his command were natives, and
his wife's dislike to the naked, dirty, native
servants had offended them; so that they
allowed the family to starve and die before
their eyes. The English servant died first,
then the poor little baby. When I looked at
my friend, I could scarcely believe that he had
strength to dig the little grave. He and his
wife were alive, for they spoke to me, but
fever and dysentery and starvation had made
them more terrible to a living man than any
apparition.

"Good God, Malcombe! " I exclaimed,
"have you nothing?—no quinine, no wine, no
food ?"

"We never have had any food except
snails and kaukey, which Emma can't eat,"
he said, " and now we have no medicine."

"But there is a kroom half a mile off. The
headman can and ought to furnish you with
fowls and fish and game and cocoa-nuts—in
fact, everything you want." .

"He can't: he says he has none, and is
starving himself."

I saw at once how it was, and turned to
Quobna who was by my side.

"Go to the headman. You know what
is wanted. Tell him if it is not here in
two hours, I'll burn down the kroom, and
take him to Oke Amolo to be tried for his
life."

Quobna went; and, in two hours, was
preparing one of his daintiest dishes for the sick
lady.

I found, however, that it was impossible
they could rally without quinine and port wine,
and sent off a runner through the bush, who
was to bring six bottles of wine and the
quinine packed in a small hamper on his
head. For every day by which this man
shortened the time usually allowed for the
journey, he was to receive the double of the
whole pay. To my surprise he returned
from Oke Amolo in thirty hours from the
time of setting out. I think it impossible
that lie could have done the whole distance
himself; he mast have sent my note on by