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Our capture was named the San Sebastian, and hailed from Havana; she had four hundred and twenty-one slaves on board, out of a total of four hundred and seventy-six that she had brought out of the Gaboon river only ten days before; she was a very fine handsome vessel of three hundred and forty-five tons measurement; and our recent experiences with her had proved that she sailed like a witch.
Tippet, an intelligent coloured man from the States, who has been living thirteen years on the Gaboon, since the age of fourteen, and who acts as native trader to Mr. R.B.N. Walker, for ivory, ebony, rubber, and other produce, escorted me to his extensive establishment. At length I am amongst the man- eaters. A Specimen Day with the Fan Cannibals.
"Vai direito," according to Father Ciprani, also applies to a "wonderful bird, whose song consists in these plain words;" and "Mondele" is synonymous with the Utangani of the Gaboon and the East African Muzungu, a white man. This bend was in former days the terminus of canoe travel up stream. Grisly tales of mishap are told; and even now a musketry salute is fired when boats pass without accident.
The traveller is no longer in the "dilemma of Frere Jean," and, except at the river-mouth and at the adjacent villages, there is none of that officious complaisance which characterizes every hamlet in the Gaboon country. The men appear peculiarly jealous, and the women fearful of the white face.
All day long, priests and clerical-looking gentlemen mounted the long flight of steps that led to a spacious first floor, lighted by large, high windows surmounted by grotesque heads. There the long-bearded missionaries came to purchase their cargoes of glass beads or imitation coral rosaries, before embarking for the East, or the Gaboon, to convert the negroes and the Chinese.
His efforts were ably seconded by his good lady, an exceedingly comely Gaboon woman, with pretty manners, and an excellent gift in cookery. The third member of the staff was the store-keeper, a clever fellow: I fancy a Loango from his clean-cut features and spare make, but his tribe I know not for a surety.
It was well worth while, for if the British Niger, the German Cameroons, and the French Gaboon are some day to develop commercially and colonially, as they seem to give promise of doing, Fernando Po, with its insular position, its comparatively healthy climate, and its excellent anchorage, lying as it does at an equal distance from the three centres of activity, cannot fail to become a most important place both from the commercial and the military point of view.
"Where he exists we shall probably find others," said David; "though their habitation does not reach further south than we now are: indeed, I did not expect to meet them in this latitude. They chiefly inhabit the country about the Gaboon and other rivers to the north of us."
Some thirty years ago an American super-cargo ascended the Rembwe River, the south-eastern line of the Gaboon fork, and is said to have collected "dirt" which, tested at New York, produced 16 dollars per bushel. All the old residents in the Gaboon know the story of the gold dust. The prospector was the late Captain Richard E. Lawlin, of New York, who was employed by Messrs.
When I was in Gaboon in September, 1895, there was great Uvengwa excitement in a district just across the other side of the estuary, mainly at a village that enjoyed the spacious and resounding name of Rumpochembo, from a celebrated chief, and all these phenomena were rife there.
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