CiiAP. lY. ARllIVAL OF FRESH STORES. 61 



nometer was brorglit me Ly Captain Yardon on Lis 

 return voyage from London in September. I liad 

 then three sets and was prepared for accidents wliicli 

 might occur in crossing rivers and so forth. I had 

 sent the damaged chronometers and sextants to Eng- 

 land through the Rev. W. Walker of tlie Gaboon; 

 this being the only way I could send them at that 

 time. They went to the Gaboon in a native boat, 

 and were sent by Mr. Walker to the English consul 

 at Fernando Po, who kindly shipped them in the 

 mail steamer for Liverpool. I must here record my 

 thanks to Mr, Graves, now M.P. for Liverpool, who 

 took the trouble to receive the instruments and trans- 

 mit them to London, where my friends had them 

 repaired or replaced by new ones. Not the least 

 welcome was a box of medicines sent to me by 

 my good friend, Robert Cooke. My kind friends, 

 the American missionaries at the Gaboon, also sent 

 me a supply of medicines and other things. But 

 their letters were not of a kind to bring me much 

 consolation : they were not so hopeful as I was of 

 success in my undertaking, and although they did 

 not so express themselves, I could see they thought I 

 should never return. 



An interesting event occurred in July, whicli is 

 worth recording here. It was the arrival of a French 

 steamer, the first steam vessel ever seen in the v.^aters 

 of the Fernand Yaz. Some of my negroes came 

 into my hut one morning in great consternation, and 

 breathless with running, to say that a great, smoking 

 ship of war had come down the Npoulounay river. 

 I asked how many guns it had. " Ten," they replied 



