Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/137

 speaks English perfectly, while retaining his French embellishments and decorations to conversation.

The Post, i.e. Custom House, is situated a hundred yards or so from the factory, like it, facing the strand; and we make our way thither over and among the usual débris of a south-west coast beach, logs of waterworn trees, great hard seeds, old tins, and the canoes, which are drawn up out of the reach of the ever-mischievous, thieving sea.

The Custom House is far more remarkable for quaintness than beauty; it is two stories high, the ground floor being the local lock-up. The officer in charge lives on the topmost floor and has a long skeleton wooden staircase whereby to communicate with the lower world. This staircase is a veritable "hen-roost" one. It is evidently made to kill people, but why? Individuals desirous of defrauding customs would not be likely to haunt this Custom House staircase, and good people, like me, who want to pay dues, should be encouraged and not killed.

The officer is having his siesta; but when aroused is courteous and kindly, but he incarcerates my revolver, giving me a feeling of iniquity for having had the thing. I am informed if I pay 15s. for a licence I may have it—if I fire French ammunition out of it. This seems a heavy sum, so I ask M. Pichault, our mentor, what I may be allowed to shoot if I pay this? Will it make me free, as it were, of all the local shooting? May I daily shoot governors, heads of departments, and sous officiers? M. Pichault says "Decidedly not";—I may shoot "hippo, or elephants, or crocodiles." Now I have never tried shooting big game in Africa with a revolver, and as I don't intend to, I leave the thing in pawn. My collecting-cases and spirit, the things which I expected to reduce me to a financial wreck by custom dues, are passed entirely free, because they are for science. Vive la France!

21st.—Puddle about seashore. Dr. Nassau comes down from Baraka to see if Messrs. Hatton and Cookson have not appropriated a lady intended for the mission station. One was coming from Batanga by the Benguella, he knew, and he is told one has been seen on Hatton and Cookson's quay. Mr. Fildes assures him that the lady they have has been invoiced to the firm, and I am summoned to bear out the