2 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
along the coast by hammock, in order to gain a closer 
acquaintance with the character of the country that here 
borders the sea. Carriers are not always easily obtained 
at Ambriz, and they were even more difficult to secure at 
this particular time, for they found such lucrative work 
in bringing coffee from the interior to the merchants’ 
- stores that they little cared for the more fatiguing task of 
carrying a white man in a hammock to Kinsembo. The 
day passed in listless and hopeless waiting at the house 
of an English trader, and I began to think it would be 
necessary to resign myself to the disagreeable thought of 
passing a night with the fleas and mosquitoes which 
Ambriz lavishes on all new-comers; but as the sun began’ 
to sink very near the sea horizon, a sufficient number of 
men were collected one by one, a hammock was borrowed, 
and I gladly shook the dust of Ambriz off my feet, and 
settled comfortably into the half-drowsy state which the 
swaying motion of the hammock produces. Our path lay 
for some distance along the seashore, right in amongst the 
‘foam of the breakers, whose deafening roar made the ears 
ring. Here safe from their cruel force, on dear Mother 
Earth, I could look with wonder and interest on the 
hate GrllG roll and terrible rebound of the waves, which — 
render landing on these unprotected coasts almost. im- 
possible in anything but a surf-boat. Half-an-hour’s jog- 
trot on the part of the men brought us to the river Loge 
(Nloji), which at present (1883) is the northern boundary 
of the Portuguese possessions in Lower Guinea. ‘The 
clumps of mangrove which border its narrow mouth are 
very fine and picturesque, and afford shelter to many 
water birds, which were busily fishing for their evening 
meal whilst we waited to cross the river. A native canoe 
came from the opposite side, and ferried us over in two 
journeys; and then, leaving the river, we passed through 
several black and fetid marshes, where the branches of the 
mangroves grew so low that they often took me by the 
chin and nearly jerked me out of the hammock. 
As the ground grew more solid and strong, forests of 
“candelabra” euphorbias, ugly, bewitched-looking things, - 
