418 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



( Jnno :., 1866. 



for onr welfare) on board, we will proceed on onr journey ; and 

 Bs the reach of tlie rivor in which the town stands ig a Iodr one, 



we will take this opportanity of describing the guide before 



entering on the more interesting country. Our pilot is a gentle- 

 man of most decided colour, being as black as the ace of spades, 



with lips of most astounding size; his uoso looked as if made 



of black shoemaker's wax, which one day, whilst its owner had 

 been lying on his back in the sun, having been exposed to too 



great a heat, had become softened and had flattened aud 



spread over a largo portion of his face. Notwithstanding the 



general want of comeliness of his features, aud what would 



be the whites of tho eyes in Europeans, in his being ochro- 



coloured, the boy, for he was only about fourteen or fifteen 



years of age, was a very easy, good-tempered being, and con- 

 trived to make himself much liked during the time ho was with 



ns. He was one of the numerous sons of the king, and a great 



favourite of his father, consequently, a person of some im- 

 portance, and, therefore, of no small value to us as a guide 



especially as all the tribes through which we went were, to 



some extent, inimical to whites. After rounding the first bend 



in the river the stream became narrower and more rapid ; and 



though it was now getting on towards evening we continued to 



row on, for I was anxious to gain a wider part of the river 



before dark, which our guide assured me could easily be done 



if the Crewe boys would row well ; and he was right, for success 



crowned their labours, and we dropped anchor for tho night in 



a fine wide reach, which was about 500 or GOO vards across. We 



had been pulling since noon through a beautiful vista of noble 



trees and twining pknts, to all appearance growing out of the 



water, for the land is so low and swampy that it seems scarcely 



to rise above the level of the water, especially as the most lovely 



little watery ways open in all directions, looking hke green 



country lanes branching oil from the main high road ; and here 



was constantly to be seen a solitary canoe paddling away at full 



speed, or some lazy old alligator swimming leisurely along. 



Flocks of parrots, too, screamed about amongst the trees, an'd 



now and then a wizen-faced monkey would pup his head round 



some branch of a tree, and then spring chattering away. With 



regard to alligators, they here seem to be held in as much respect 



as the sharks are about Bonny, for we passed a number of small i and its quality and conVenT.^it 



houses about 3 feet square, made of a kind of bamboo frame '■ '= ■- ■ • , .''^'?."'^°' 



covered with white calico, on examining which we foniul onmc i i.nu .."i- i« ■ i,- u " ; — "' " 



Oil Palm nuts, a pair of liVe white fowlstandsometimes a kmd ^^-f^^^'"^'- l"" ^:^."=^ '^J'- compartments, the flat surface of 



of cake or bread. These our guide told us were juju— that is 



sacred, and were intended as sacrifices to the alligators, with 



■which the river swarms, to propitiate them, and keep them in 



good humour. Now, we being hungi-y and partial to poultrv, 



personated their sacred highnesses the alligators, and took tlie 



fowls wherever we could lay our hands ou them ; and I must 



give our guide credit for being more enlightened, or else sunk 



in much deeper ignorance than his countrymen generally, for 



he took to robbing the juju-houses quite as readilv, and to the 



full as eagerly as the unbelieving white men. 



Early next morning, indeed before dayhght, there being a 

 beautiful moon, we hove anchor and continued our onward 

 passage. About sunrise we came to an extensive open space 

 more than half a mile across, where a number of the arms of 

 the delta converged, and which was dotted with numerous 

 small islets, most exquisitely clothed with tall green grass, 

 and various kinds of tropical p"lantp, chiefly shrubs. Fancy what 

 must have been our delight on suddenly coming from a long 

 straight strip of water not more than 150 yards across, and 

 closed in on both sides by a wall of taU forest trees, to emerge 

 at once upon a lovely scene like this, especially lighted up 

 by the glorious slanting rays of the rising sun, bright and 

 cloudless as it often is iu the tropics, throwing one portion into 

 sombre shade, whilst the other appeared still more brilhantly 

 illmninated by the contrast. It was a scene of such surpassing 

 loveliness, that I have never looked upon the hke since, and I 

 have never forgotten it. This beautiful spot stands between 

 the territories of the Cricqui-men and the Booqui-men, and we 

 had riot gone far into the possessions of the latter before an 

 amusing incident took j.lace, showing how small the communi- 

 cation is between tlie whites and these tribes. We saw a partv 

 on shore around a tire, and our guide told me thev were dning 

 fish, so I asked him to procure some, which after a good deal 

 of coaxing to prevail on them to approach, they never having 

 seen whites before, he managed to efiect. He induced these 

 poor wretches, by setting them the example, to taste some 

 ship's biscuit, which seemed to be quite to their liking ; he 

 then persuaded them to taste some sugar, which they had no 

 sooner done than they paddled ashore to their companions as 



hard as they conid go, exclaiming, as onr pilot interpreted to ns, 

 that the white men had some salt which tasted like honey. 



Having passed through the Booqui torritorj-, we at lencth 

 came to that of the Ebo or Elebo men, in which tho Elms 

 gnineensis grows, and where a large portion of the palm oil 

 obtained in this part of Africa, is manufactured. Tho inha- 

 bitants of this district are a powerful, warlike, treacherons 

 race, and much superior to the tribes surrounding them, all of 

 whom seem to stand more or less in awe of them. Here then 

 13 to be seen the beautiful Oil Palm. It is a tallish tree' 

 and, like all the other Palms, has a long straight stem and 

 an elegant head of feather-like leaves, beneath which grow 

 clusters of fruit, berries are perhaps the best name for them 

 which, when fully ripe, arc of a deep orange or red colour.' 

 These hemes being ripe are gathered and placed in a rat 

 where they are subjected to pressure, and the oil is thus ex- 

 pressed. That which comes first is called not pahn oil, bnt 

 palm butter,, and is the very finest of the oil. It is used by 

 the natives as we use butter, and when fresh is a dchcions 

 substitute for it, being very much of the consistency of fresh 

 butter, bnt of a beautiful deep orange colour. The oil after 

 being expressed is put into large casks or puncheons, which are 

 supplied to the natives by the white traders, who are princi- 

 pally in this neighbourhood Liverpool merchants, the trad© 

 itself having originated ont of the slave trade in the following 

 manner :— The late Sir .7. Tobin, of Liverpool, sent out to the 

 coast of Africa a vessel to be loaded with slaves, but whilst she 

 was loading news came that the slave trade was abolished, and, 

 therefore, another cargo had to be found. The vessel being 

 plentifully supplied with soldiers' buttons fthen a great article 

 of trade), beads, and other commodities suitable for the 

 traffic in niggers, and palm oil, at that time almost unknown 

 m Europe, being tolerably plentiful, a portion of a cargo 

 was at once procured, enough to bring the ship home in more 

 than ballast trim. This was sold at an enormous profit ; and 

 other vessels were at once fitted out to trade for this article, 

 which now forms a large item in the imports of Liverpool. 



The oil when brought down to the vessels for sale is often 

 most enormously adulterated, either with water, mud, or sand, 

 and its quality and consequent value as far as these adultera- 

 tions go is ascertained in the following manner :— A long, steel, 

 rlinder, in which are compartments, the flat surface of 

 which is fitted with a slide running the whole length of the 

 instrument, is thrust through the bunghole to the bottom of 

 the cask, and then the shde, which has been drawn np, is 

 pushed down, of course enclosing a portion of oil in each 

 division. The contents of these compartments are separately 

 emptied into a copper fning-pan, and heated over a fire, when 

 the oil, which is thick, becomes melted, and nuite fluid ; then 

 the water and dirt, or water or dirt, sink to the' bottom, and the 

 oil is poured off, leaving these adulterations in the pan, and 

 thus showing to what extent the oil is impure. If the oil is 

 taken the cask is hoisted on board the ship, and boiled in a 

 large iron vessel, the oil itself floating on the top, and the 

 impurities sinking to the bottom ; the former is then drawn off, 

 and, whilst hot, run into casks stowed in the hold of the vessel, 

 which, when full, are carefully bnnged-up, and another tier 

 stowed, and so on tUl the ship is loaded. 



The vessels engaged in the palm-oil trade have to Temain 

 generally for months in some river on the coast of Africa, and 

 as all boiling, &c., goes on upon deck, the first thing done after 

 mooring ship is to house her in. For this purpose the upper 

 masts are brought on deck or sent on shore : large spars are 

 lashed high up between the lower masts, and from these long 

 poles are sloped down nearly to the sides of the ship in jnst 

 the same way a.s the roof of a house is formed; across these, 

 again, lighter poles are lashed, making a trelliswork, and over 

 the whole mats are sewn iu such a manner as to make a cover- 

 ing impervious to rain, aud, of course, to the sun, which in 

 the tropics is nt mid-day, indeed for the greater part of the 

 day, unbearable to Europeans. These mats are made of the 

 pith, or rather inside fibre of a species of cane, which grows np 

 the country. It is a most elegant and beautiful plant, growing 

 from an immense crown after the manner of some of the 

 Grasses, each frond or leaf varying from 10 to IS feet or more 

 in length, tapering from the root to the top, and having oppo- 

 site pairs of lance-shaped leaflets niiuiing all up the leafstalk, 

 the pairs being placed nearer together as they approach the 

 apex, but at the base as much as :j or 4 feet apart. The main 

 rib is semi-cylindrical, and is covered with a strong silicions 

 coat, which is stripped off, and being very durable and elastic — 

 indeed, almost as much so as whalebone — is split into thin 



