Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/194

 shroud the Sierra del Cristal. I very rarely met any natives in this part; those that I did were hunters, big, lithe men with all their toilet attention concentrated on their hair. On two occasions I ran some risk from having been stalked in mistake for game by these hunters. "Hoots toots, mon, a verra pretty thing it would hae been for an Englishwoman to hae been shot in mistake for a gorilla by a cannibal Fan of all folks," was a Scotch friend's commentary. I escaped, however, because these men get as close as they can to their prey before firing; and when they found out their mistake they were not such cockney sportsmen as to kill me because I was something queer, and we stood and stared at each other, said a few words in our respective languages, and parted. One thing that struck me very much in these forests was the absence of signs of fetish worship which are so much in evidence in Calabar, where you constantly come across trees worshipped as the residences of spirits, and little huts put up over offerings to bush souls.

Thanks to the kindness of M. Forget, I had an opportunity of visiting Talagouga Island—a grant of which has been made by the French Government to the Mission Évangélique, who, owing to the inconveniences of being hitched precariously on a hillside, intend shortly removing from their present situation, and settling on the island.

Talagouga Island is situated in the middle of the river, about halfway between the present mission beach and Njole. It is a mile long and averages about a quarter of a mile wide; the up-river end of it is a rocky low hill, and it tapers down river from this, ending in a pretty little white sandbank. At the upper end there is a reef of black rocks against which the Ogowé strikes, its brown face turning white with agitation at being interrupted, when it is in such a tearing hurry to get to the South Atlantic. When going up river to it in a canoe, creeping up along by the bank, I had more chance of seeing details than when on the Éclaireur with her amusing distractions. The first object of interest was Talagouga rock; seen at close quarters, it rises a gray, rough, weathered head, much water-worn, some twenty feet above the dry season level of the water. Goodness knows how far it is down