Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/110

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the deck his socks and hats and boots just anyhow, and over all and everything was a coating of wet coal-dust. On the little lower deck were the unfortunate native passengers. They were silent, which with native passengers means sick, and every rag they possessed was wringing wet. Rats ran freely about everywhere, and from out of the black patch of silence on the main deck rose no sound save Mrs. S.'s Chei! Chei! Chei! of disgust and disapproval of her surroundings. The kindly German captain (for the Eko belonged to a great German trading firm in Lagos, and not to the steamboat companies) did all he could to make me comfortable, and the Government official pointed out to me objects of interest on the distant shore: the lighthouse, the Government House, the Wilberforce Hall, and so on, but particularly the little Government steamer which, he observed, was getting up steam to be ready to take him up river early in the morning. He seemed to think they were beginning rather too early, as the Government are vigilant about the sin of wasting coal. As the afternoon wore away, our interest in the coming of the Benguella grew until it surpassed all other interests, and the Benguella became the one thing we really cared about in life, and yet she came not. The little Eko rolled to and fro, to and fro, all the loose gear going slipperty, slop, crash; slipperty, slop, crash: coal-dust, smuts, and a broiling sun poured down on us quietly, and the only thing or motion that gave us any variety was every three or four minutes the Eko making a vicious jerk at her anchor. About six o'clock a steamer was seen coming up into the roads. The experienced captain said she was not the Benguella, and she was not, but the Janette Woermann, and as soon as she got settled, her captain came on board the Eko, of course to ask what prospect there was of cargo on shore. He appeared as a gigantic, lithe, powerful Dane clad in a uniform of great splendour and exceeding tightness, terminating in a pair of Blucher boots and every inch of his six feet four spick and span, but that was only the visible form—his external seeming. What that man really was, was our two guardian cherubs rolled into one, for no sooner did he lay eye on us—the depressed and distracted official and the dilapidated lady—than he claimed us as his own, and in a few more