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A MISSION TO GELELE,
KING OF DAHOME.



CHAPTER I.

I FALL IN LOVE WITH FERNANDO PO.

This fertile soil, which enjoys a perpetual spring, is considered a strong prison, as the land of spectres, the seat of disease, and the mansion of death
Said of Bengal by its Moslem conquerors.

A Ilha Formosa, the lovely island of Fernando Po, has, like most beauties, two different, indeed two opposite, aspects.

About Christmas time she is in a state deeper than rest,—

A kind of sleepy Venus seemed Dudu.

Everything, in fact, appears enwrapped in the rapture of repose. As the ship glides from the rolling, blustering Bights into that wonderfully still water, men come on deck feeling they know not what; çela porte à l'amour,