Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/430

 the Lafayette under way, and run across first to some sandbanks, whose heads are exposed at low water—beautiful stretches of dove-coloured sand, but apparently not even a whelk as far as shells go. Up through the sand are sticking thousands of little white tubes, apparently empty; but after a few minutes,—having parted from the riot of the crew and quietness reigning—I find, when the sand is wetted by the foam, some lovely little sea anemones looking out of the tops of the tubes. After a time I rejoin the crew and find they have dug out a few olive and harp shells, but nothing remarkable; and I hurt Eveke's feelings by saying I consider Corisco, as a collecting ground for shells, a fraud. He assures me solemnly that in the wet season, which has calmer seas than the dry, when the sun comes out and shines upon the exposed sandbanks, they are covered with thousands of shells, but from his description I think they are mostly olives. We go across from the sandbank to Laval, a little rock island with a patch of bush on its summit, and from its edges—the size does not run to shores—I get some sponges. Then on to Baña, a larger island, which has a population of rats only, from whence it is sometimes called Rat Island—but I get no more shells, Before I get back to Corisco, Eveke solemnly assures me that the women with their fishing baskets will be ready to-morrow early.

Get up and hurry off early to Nassau Bay. Women not ready. Wait for two hours sitting on the steps of a native's house, which is built in the European style, and situated across the top of the village. There are two other houses like this one, I notice, between here and Alondo, each ostentatiously placed across the street. At last Eveke comes and says, "The women make trouble. They no get the baskets ready to-day; they have them ready to-morrow for sure, but not to-day." Internally blessing Eveke and the ladies, I go to see how the world is made along the southern shores of the island―along the dove-coloured sand, hedged on my right hand by the spray wall of the surf, and on the left by low-growing bushes, flowering profusely with long sprays of intensely sweet-scented, white mimosa-like flower. Behind these rises the high bush of one of the miniature forests. Every now and then I pass a path