Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/683

 line being almost entirely composed of cargo vessels calling at the smaller ports as well as the larger.

There is another classification that must be grasped. The English boats being divided into, firstly a line having its terminus at Sierra Leone and calling at the Isles do Los; secondly, a line having its terminus at Akassa; thirdly, a line having its terminus at Old Calabar; fourthly, a line having its terminus at San Paul de Loanda, and in addition, a direct line from Antwerp to the Congo, chartered by the Congo Free State Government. Division 4, the South-westers, are the quickest vessels as far as Lagos, for they only call at the Canaries, Sierra Leone, off the Kru Coast, at Accra, and off Lagos; then they run straight from Lagos into Cameroons, without touching the Rivers, reaching Cameroons in twenty-seven days from Liverpool. After Cameroons they cross to Fernando Po and run into Victoria, and then work their way steadily down coast to their destination. Thence up again, doing all they know to extract cargo, but never succeeding as they would wish, and so being hungry in the hold when they get back to the Bight of Benin, they are liable to smell cargo and goin after it, and therefore are not necessarily the quickest boats home.

Two French companies run to the French possessions, subsidised by their Government (as the German line is, and as our lines are not)—the Chargeurs Réunis and the Fraissinet. The South-west Coast liners of these companies run to Gaboon and then to Koutonu, up near Lagos, then back to Gaboon, and down as far as Loango, calling on their way home at the other ports in Congo Français. They are mainly carriers of import goods, because they run to time, and on the South-west Coast unless time has an ameliorating touch of eternity in it you cannot get export goods off.

Below the Congo the rivals of the English and German lines are the vessels of the Portuguese line, Empreza Nacional. These run from Lisbon to the Cape Verde Islands, thence to San Thomé and Principe, then to the ports of Angola (Loanda, Benguella, Mossamedes, Ambrizette, &c.), and they carry the bulk of the Angola trade at present, because of the preferential dues on goods shipped in Portuguese bottoms.

The service of English vessels to the West Coast is weekly, to the Rivers fortnightly, to the South-west Coast monthly; and it is the chief thing in West Coast trade enterprise that England has to be proud of.

Any one of the English boats will go anywhere that mortal boat can go; and their captains' local knowledge is a thing