Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/435

 affection of the engaged pair too long, for I should fancy it might lead to some internal disorder.

I heard a quantity of details of Corisco family affairs—one very sad one, of how a young man who was a native trader for one of the German houses up the Cameroons River, came to his death a short time ago. The firm had decided to break factory at the place where he was stationed, a thing the natives of this country cannot bear; for having a factory that has once been established among them removed, brings them into derision and contempt among their neighbours. "You're a pretty town," say the scornful. "You can't keep a factory. Yah!" Moreover, a factory in a town is an amusement and a convenience, let alone being lucrative to the native. Well, this unfortunate young Benga man was left behind by the white men to see the last of the goods cleared out and brought down river; and while he was faithfully looking to these things, the local natives attacked him and killed him and "cut him up like a fish into small pieces and threw them into the water," says Mrs. Ibea. These native sub-traders have very risky lives of it, travelling undefended, with goods, amongst the savage tribes on this South-West Coast. They frequently get killed and robbed, and the only thing that keeps them from not being so treated still more frequently is that the commercial instinct of the bush tribes warns them that it would completely stamp out trade. In Corisco Bay the river Muni, a name given it by the Portuguese early navigators from the native word for "take care," is notoriously unsafe—all the more so because there is no settled European authority over it, France and Spain being at loggerheads about the ownership of the piece of coast from Cape Esterias to Batta. This had doubtless a good deal to do with those children's conduct this afternoon; for Corisco Island and Eloby Islands are Spanish possessions, and are under a Vice-Governor to the Governor of Fernando Po. I remember when I was out before, being led to believe that the Vice-Governorship of Eloby was a sort of pensioning-off place for Spanish officials who had gone mad, or that it was held by London County Councillors in disguise. One of the Vice-Governors was truly great at domestic legislation, and nothing