HOMEWARDS. 215 
asked pointedly to see my first-class ticket. However, I 
ransacked my weather-stained trunks and found in them 
some remnants of respectable clothing, such as might befit — 
the decent poor; but when I sat down at the end of a 
long table-@héte with the spick-and-span Portuguese 
officials and their wives, who were carrying with them 
into their African exile as much flavour of fashionable 
Lisbon as they could wear on their persons, I felt myself 
to be a great barbarian, and almost wished to be back in _ 
the centre of Africa, where I should once more lead the 
ton. At last, after two days’ steaming, the beautiful Bay 
of Loanda opened out before us, and I knew myself to be 
among friends. I walked hurriedly up through the sandy 
streets, to a blue-and-white house situated on an eminence 
— overlooking the town, from whose roof: the Union Jack 
rose proudly into the still air. The consul was looking 
out of his study window, and thought I was either a 
beggar or a “degredado” come to solicit work; but when 
- I looked up at him and laughed, he welcomed me as one 
come from the dead (perhaps more heartily than in that 
case), and under his hospitable roof I had a happy foretaste 
of an Enelish home, 
