Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/60

 more of this tramway. A large surf-boat was being laden with its rails, and as it persisted, owing to the long heavy swell, in playing bob cherry with every bundle of them, the time came when the man at the winch "came back a bit" suddenly instead of "softly, softly" as he had been carefully ordered to do. This happened when the boat was nearly laden, and one of the bundles of rails hanging on the chain swung round and speared that lively surf-boat right through.

A scene of some excitement followed, accompanied by a perfect word-fog of directions and advice. The chain was hastily lowered into the boat and put round bundles of rails which were as hastily hauled back on to the Batanga's deck, but still the boat with the balance of the rails continued sinking, and her black crew when they realised this went "for water one time" and swam round at a respectful distance so as to avoid the coming down suck, in spite of being most distinctly requested to return to the boat and sling rails like fury. Then Captain Murray came upon the scene and rose to the occasion, ordering ropes to be passed bodily under the boat and round her in such a manner that she was held up, whether she would or no, until she was unloaded. Then she was hauled on deck and repaired during the rest of the voyage by my old friend the Portuguese carpenter, although he announced himself as "suffering from rheumatism under the influence of the doctor."

The Gold Coast is one of the few places in West Africa that I have never felt it my solemn duty to go and fish in. I really cannot say why. Seen from the sea it is a pleasant-looking land. The long lines of yellow, sandy beach backed by an almost continuous line of blue hills, which in some places come close to the beach, in other places show in the dim distance. It is hard to think that it is so unhealthy as it is, from just seeing it as you pass by. It has high land and has not those great masses of mangrove-swamp one usually, at first, associates with a bad fever district, but which prove on acquaintance to be at any rate no worse than this well-elevated open-forested Gold Coast land. There are many things to be had here and in Lagos which tend to make