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again. Then to work once more ; " Haas' de anchor 

 air* is the order, and after the usual shouting and 

 noise up it slowly comes in response to the efforts of 

 the sailors straining at the clums}^ windlass which 

 fills up the forward deck. This time it may happen 

 that there is some breeze (although on this particular 

 voyage the actual sailing certainly did not amount to 

 two days altogether), and then with luck and a follow- 

 ing wind the boat may do seven or eight knots for a 

 bit ; but, unfortunately, even when there is a breeze, 

 tacking is more often than not the order of the day, 

 and then her speed is hardly better than that the oars- 

 men produce, as it means a continual zig-zag back- 

 wards and forwards across the river, gaining a mile 

 perhaps on one tack, only to lose most of it again on 

 the other and in the time it takes the ship to go about. 

 The above are no imaginary scenes nor pages 

 from the journal of some early trader or slave-ship 

 skipper on the African rivers, but a record of to-day, 

 of happenings to the writer, a colonial surgeon, on 

 his way to his headquarters on the upper part of the 

 Gambia river. Fate, in the shape of a breakdown of 

 the steamer which usually runs more or less regularly 

 up and down the river, had been unkind, and he has 

 had to return to the methods of river-travel in vogue 

 before steam made wind and tide of little account, 

 and to experience what his ancestors, had they been 

 African traders, went through on their voyages up and 

 down the coasts and in the rivers they explored for 

 gold, ivory or slaves, from the days of Hanno until 

 the era of Messrs. Elder Dempster & Co. For days 

 and weeks together they and their vessels must have 

 lain in the rivers at the mercy of the tide.s, content if, 



