Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/146

 like note, and the ubiquitous Wu-tu-tu, the clock bird, so called from its regular habit of giving the cry, from which its native name comes, every two hours during the night, commencing at 4. and going off duty at 6

On my return home, I find Mr. Hudson is back from the Ogowé on the Mové, unaltered since '93, I am glad to say. He tells me good Dom Joachim de Sousa Coutinho e Chichorro is dead, and his wife Donna Anna, and her sister Donna Maria de Sousa Coutinho, my valued friends, have returned from Kabinda to Lisbon.

28th.—Go to west side of Libreville shell-hunting; after passing through the town, and in front of the mango-tree embowered mission station of the Espiritu Santo, the road runs along close to the sea, through a beautiful avenue of cocoa-palms. Then there is a bridge, and a little beyond this the road ends, and so I take to the sandy sea-shore for a mile or so.

The forest fringes the sand, rising in a wall of high trees, not mangroves; and here and there a stinking stream comes out from under them, and here and there are masses of shingle-formed conglomerate and stratified green-gray rock. Beyond Libreville there are several little clearings in the forest with a native town tucked into them, the inhabitants of which seem a happy and contented generation mainly devoted to fishing, and very civil. On my walk back I notice the people getting water from the stinking streams; small wonder the mortality is high in Libreville: this is usually attributed to the inhabitants "going it," but they might "go it" more than they do, without killing themselves if they left off drinking this essence of stinking slime.

29th.—Went to see Mrs. Gault and Dr. Nassau, who says the natives have a legend of a volcano about sixty miles from here.

30th.—Mrs. Gault asks me to go with her to a Bible meeting, held by a native woman. I assent, I go; Mrs. Sarah, the Biblewoman, is a very handsome, portly lady who speaks English very well. There are besides her, Mrs. Gault and myself, eight or nine native women, and two men. Hymns are sung in M'pongwe, one with a rousing chorus of "Gory