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We had but one adventure, if indeed it could be called such, on our passage across the Atlantic, and that occurred on our eighth day out from Sierra Leone. Up to then we had sighted nothing, and had had a very fine passage, the trade wind blowing fresh enough all the time to enable us to maintain an average speed of nine knots throughout the passage.
Huge, bossy cumuli developed with astonishing rapidity from mere buds, swelling with visible motion into colossal mountains, and piling higher, higher, in long massive ranges, peak beyond peak, dome over dome, with many a picturesque valley and shadowy cave between; while the dark firs and pines of the upper benches of the Sierra were projected against their pearl bosses with exquisite clearness of outline.
This settlement has been known as "The White Man's Grave;" and it is certainly a beautiful spot for a grave as lovely as one of those ornamental cemeteries, now so fashionable, and on which so much of our taste is lavished; as if only the dead had leisure for the enjoyment of shrubbery and sculpture. Sierra Leone, however, is by no means the fatal spot that it once was.
Between this ridge and the Sierra of Guitru-gueyu, a distance of sixty miles, the country is swampy, with the tosca-rock appearing only in four or five spots: this sierra, precisely like that of Tapalguen, is bordered by horizontal, often cliff-bounded, little hills of tosca-rock, higher than the surrounding plain.
Nearly all the lofty mountain-chains of the globe are inhabited by wild sheep, most of which, on account of the remote and all but inaccessible regions where they dwell, are imperfectly known as yet. To this last-named species belongs the wild sheep of the Sierra.
I do not know how this scenery would appear in the daytime, but by moonlight it is wonderfully wild and romantic, especially after passing the summit of the Sierra. As the day dawned we entered the stern and savage defiles of the Despena Perros, which equals the wild landscapes of Salvator Rosa.
It hardens when exposed to the air, and becomes very tough and slightly elastic, and is said to be quite as good and useful as ordinary glue. Having partaken of as much milk as they desired, they continued their journey a little further, when they came to a spur of the sierra, or mountain range, that cuts through that part of the country.
The history of Sierra Leone is the history of every other colony along the West Coast, with the difference that it became a colony by purchase, and was not, as were the others, a trading station gradually converted into a colony.
The rivers did not find depressions formed ready for them to occupy, but had to excavate their channels by the slow process of grinding away the solid rock. The streams of the Sierra Nevada mountains begin their course in steep-walled alcoves under the shadows of the high peaks, where they are fed by perpetual snow-banks.
In this case, the Society would take measures to supply him with the necessary equipment. The expedition began unfortunately, by the loss of outfit and instruments in the "Nigritia," wrecked off Sierra Leone: it persevered, however, and presently met Dr. Bastian and Professor von Gorschen at Cabinda. The former had collected much information about the coast.
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