Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/658

 in the Nachtigal, a powerful little guard-ship which acts as the Governor of Cameroons' yacht. "True, O King!" I replied, "but I am not the Governor of Cameroons." He bowed and said he knew that, but the Nachtigal was in a few days coming into Victoria on her way to Calabar with Herr von Besser, who was the German representative on the Calabar-Cameroon Delimitation Commission, and that he was sure Governor von Puttkamer would allow me to go round in her. Previous experience of the kindness and courtesy of Governor von Puttkamer made me feel Herr von Lucke was right, and I gladly accepted this generous offer and proceeded to wait for the Nachtigal, and a very pleasant process this was.

The first day after my return from the mountain, Herr von Lucke suggested what he called a walk, and what I knew meant an affair of fourteen miles or so, taken at a good five miles an hour. And I, being as stiff as a table-leg, declined. Then he suggested going to see the islands in the bay in a boat, and I did not decline, and off we went.

This Bay of Amboises, commonly called Ambas Bay, is without doubt both the most lovely and the most fertile spot on the whole of the western side of the continent of Africa; and experienced mariners who have wandered far and wide say that it has few rivals in either quality in any other region of the world. To me with my experience of the world strictly limited to England and West Africa, it is an unthinkable thing that there can be any place more perfect in loveliness, majesty, colour and charm, with its circumambient mountains to landward—mountains that rise out of its dark, clear waters to heights from 3,000 to 13,760 feet. At their feet is just one narrow strip of flat shore, on which, nestling among the mango trees, is the pretty, long, ribbon-like town of Victoria—a soft brown native town, here and there speckled with a few white European buildings, while in the bay itself are three islands—Ambas, Mondoleh and Bobia—and several pinnacle rocks with energetic acrobats of trees growing in among their clefts and crevices.

Ambas and Bobia Islands are perfect gems of beauty. Mondoleh I cannot say I admire. It always looks to me exactly like one of those flower-stands full of ferns and plants