Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/671

 though much smaller. It would be an exquisite place for smuggling.

On the southern shore of Man-o'-War Bay is a beautiful little quay and landing-place for the grand plantation colloquially known as Frederickshafen, after its energetic custodian. This plantation is the property of a syndicate, the main shareholders being Messrs, Woermann, and its magnificent condition and grand output ought to do much to heal that firm’s feelings regarding their great losses over their Gaboon plantation. The house belonging to it is the finest house I know in West Africa. It is built of brick and wood and has the customary deep verandah running round it, but with this important difference, that this verandah is closed in with glazed windows, which prevent the inner rooms from being too dark to work in, and also prevents the verandah from being draughty. On the West Coast these are two dreadful faults in the European-built houses. You cannot imagine what an intolerable gloom and discomfort arises from the usual English sort of house here. The abominable structure is made of corrugated iron, roof and all, with just its skeleton and floors made of wood. Sometimes the under part of the house is closed in and used for stores and offices; sometimes it is left open, but always the living rooms are on the first floor and open out on to a verandah. The sides of this verandah are usually closed in by venetian shutters with windows at intervals. During the tornado seasons these shutters and windows have to be closed up on an average twice a day. During the wet season they are kept closed most of the six months' spell. Consequently you have to live on the verandah, for the inner rooms are then "as dark as ignorance," and the venetians only keep out a percentage of the rain, and divide the fierce tornado winds into strips which cut into you and give you your death of fever, and send all your papers flying; while the tornado, or the wet season rain plays like fifty thousand demons on the tom-tom of your corrugated iron roof. Now these things were avoided in the house at Frederickshafen, for when the windows round the verandah were shut, they, being glazed, kept out the wind and let in the light, and the roof was a roof of tiles and not a horrid tin tom-tom affair.