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Updated: May 20, 2025
Formerly a cook at the Gaboon, he is a man of note in his tribe, as the hunter always is; he holds the position of a country gentleman, who can afford to write himself M.F.H.; he is looked upon as a man of valour; he is admired by the people, and he is adored by his wives one of them at once took up her station upon the marital knee.
Jim had said that the sea-fog, coming as it did, was a sign of heat, and that we should have a regular old-fashioned hot summer, unlike those of recent years. "Ah, sir," he repeated, "I could tell a tale about that deadly Niger river, and the Gaboon, and the whole treacherous coast, if I liked, from Lagos down to the Congo ay, I could!
"They require therefore the gentlest and mildest treatment to reconcile them to their situation; but if their confidence be once obtained they manifest as great fidelity, affection and gratitude as can reasonably be expected from men in a state of slavery." The "kingdom of Gaboon," which straddled the equator, was the worst reputed of all. "From thence a good negro was scarcely ever brought.
He adds, "In Fernando Po, an island which I would recommend as a sanatorium for wealthy hypochondriacs, we found an extraordinary abundance of fruit, cocoa-nuts, bananas, mangoes, delicious oranges, and pine-apples...The ivory trade on the Gaboon is very flourishing. A German firm which I visited exports, L10,000 worth per annum, the value of total exports being, L26,000.
For away to the north the 'Como and Boque and two other lesser, but considerable streams, were, with the Rembwe, pouring down their waters in swirling, intermingling, interclashing currents; and up against them, to make confusion worse confounded, came the tide, and the tide up the Gaboon is a swift strong thing, and irregular, and has a rise of eight feet at the springs, two-and-a-half at the neaps.
At the Gaboon mouth the tide rises three feet; at the head of the Mbata Creek, where it arrests the sweet water rivulet, it is, of course, higher. And now the scene improved. Then clearings appeared. At Ejene, the second of two landing-places evidently leading to farms, we transferred ourselves to canoes, our boat being arrested by a fallen tree.
The smallest woman of this race who has been measured was only three feet three inches in height, and Barrow examined one, who was the mother of several children, with a stature of three feet eight inches. The Akoas of the Gaboon district were a race of pigmies who, now apparently extinct, formerly dwelt on the north of the Nazareth River.
"The Zaire is of such force that no ship can get in against the current but near to the shore; yea, it prevails against the ocean's saltness three-score, and as some say, four-score miles within the sea, before his proud waves yield their full homage, and receive that salt temper in token of subjection. I was disappointed after the Gambia and Gaboon rivers in the approach to the Congo.
That Germany should presume to inspect the transaction or claim a share in the settlement has filled the British mind with profound indignation, the echoes of which are heard rumbling round the world from the Guildhall to Gaboon and from the Congo to Tahiti. The mere press rumour that France might barter Tahiti for German goods filled the British newspaper world with supermundane wrath.
I speak of the FRENCH Gaboon. It was not French at the time of my visit, but it was soon to become so. We had important commercial interests there, and the idea of forming a colonial station was already entertained.
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