Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/109

 raging in Lagos; and then when we saw the branch boat that was coming out to us get stuck on the bar in the middle of what a German would call a Wirrwarr of breakers, I own it took all the fascination of my memories of the South West Coast to prevent my giving up the journey, and going home to England comfortably on the Batanga, as my best friends strongly advised my doing.

However presently the branch boat stamped her way over the bar, and came panting up, and anchored near us, and from her on to the Batanga came a Lagos Government official in a saturated state. He said he had just come out to see how a branch boat could get across the bar at low water—a noble and enterprising thing which places him in line with the Elder Pliny. He entertained us with a calm, utterly dispassionate account of how the water had washed right over them, gone down the funnel and all that sort of thing—evidently a horribly commonplace experience here; and he said the Eko (that was our branch boat's name) was not going back into Lagos until she had put the down coast mail and over a hundred deck-passengers who were going to the Congo, on to the South West Coast boat, which was hourly expected in the roads, as she had been telegraphed from Accra. He casually observed he hoped she would not be late in the afternoon as he had to go up country in the morning on the Government steamer. Well, things seeming safe and pleasant, I went off to the branch boat, being most carefully lowered over the side in a chair by the winch.

"Take care of yourself," said the Batanga.

"I will," said I, which shows the futility and vanity of such resolves, for had not other people taken care of me, goodness only knows what would have become of me. Arrived alongside of the Eko, I proceeded up her rope-ladder on deck, and that deck I shall not soon forget. The Government official had understated the case; things were in a spring-cleaning confusion the waves had not made a clean sweep of her but an uncommonly dirty one, and it would have been better if she had stuck among the breakers another half hour and given the sea-nymphs time to tidy up. They had made especial hay of the gallant captain's cabin, flinging out on to