62 START FOR THE INTERIOR. Chap. IV. 



without hesitation. The vessel turned out to be a 

 small flat-bottomed river boat forty feet in length, 

 belona-inir to an old friend of mine, Dr. Touchard 

 (Chirurgien de Marine, 1"" classe), which he had 

 bought with the intention of exploring in it the 

 rivers of Equatorial Africa, and which he had lent 

 to the French authorities at the Gaboon ; it was now 

 commanded by Lieutenant Labigot of the French 

 Navy. I need hardly say that the ten guns were 

 only products of the imagination of my excited 

 negroes, the vessel had no guns at all. It was 

 ironically named the Leviathan, and had been built, 

 originally, as a pleasure boat, for the navigation of 

 the Seine near Paris. It entered the Fernand Vaz by 

 way of the Npoulounay river, having first explored, 

 in company with a larger vessel, the river Ogobai. 

 The present trip was planned simply from a desire to 

 pay me a visit. 



The service on which Lieut. Labigot and Dr. 

 Touchard were employed was the completion of the 

 survey of the Ogobai river, which had been com- 

 menced three years previously by Messrs. Serval and 

 Griffon du Bellay, the French Government having 

 shown recently great enterprise in the exploration of 

 this region. On neither expedition were the larger 

 vessels able to ascend the Ogobai, on account of the 

 shallowness of the water, the season chosen not being 

 favourable. Lieut. Labigot and Dr. Touchard had, 

 however, the perseverance to ascend in boats, or in 

 the little steamer, as far as the junction of the 

 Okanda and Ngouyai rivers ; they were the first 

 Europeans who had reached this point, and it is to 



