FERNANDO PO. 371 



cannibals, but they profess to eat only prisoners 

 taken in war. An old palm-oil trader who had 

 been several times to the Coast, assured me, how- 

 ever, that, when yams were scarce, he has known 

 the graves in the cemetery of Rough Corner to be 

 opened, and the bodies of white sailors to have 

 been taken and eaten some days after they had 

 been buried. 



Having seen enough to make me thoroughly 

 disgusted both with Bonny and its people, I 

 returned on board the " Retriever," and bidding 

 adieu to Captain Wylde, who had shown me every 

 possible kindness and attention during the voyage, 

 at 5 p.m. the anchor was weighed and we were on 

 our way to Fernando Po. 



January 27. — At daybreak this morning I was 

 agreeably surprised at the change of scene the 

 Coast now presented, for on our port-bow towered 

 the gigantic Camaroon mountains, and on our star- 

 board quarter lay the beautifully-wooded island of 

 Fernando Po, with its cone-like peak rising 10,000 

 feet above the sea. The sea had lost that turbid 

 muddy appearance it assumes in the Bights, and 

 2b 2 



