182 
Nearing Santa Eosa Mission. 
615. Delighted with the glorious landscape I hurried ahead with my 
little corial into a thick forest of palms through which it continued to 
make its way, and in speechless astonishment stood up in the bows wnen, 
on the forest suddenly opening afresh, there spread before me a second 
stretch of water with densely-wooded hills rising beyond it in every 
quarter. From the top of one of these heights, crowned with forest, 
very close to where 1 passed, there peeped the friendly roofs of a settle- 
ment which, on account of its many fruit-trees seeming to indicate un- 
doubted European cultivation, I took to be the promised Mission Station. 
The timid withdrawal of some Indian women who gazed down upon us 
in surprise, already began to make my surmise less probable, when a 
large shed in which I noticed several chairs, a table with a numerous 
collection of glass bottles, beer- and wine-glasses, plates and dishes 
again weakened my doubts: but a small elegant house, built in European 
style, a little distance apart, to the side of the shed and several open 
trunks with articles of clothing that could be seen in the inner room 
through the unclosed door, finally banished every consideration, for to 
whom could such things belong if not to the Missionary? In this hope 
that the day's journey must be at an end I hurried on up to an Indian 
woman trembling with fright and reserve, and enquired after the owner: 
her depressing reply was that he had died a few days before. Bewailing 
our own and the Missionary's misfortune, I was just about to make 
myself at home when Mr. King arrived at the landing and called on- to 
me that I must not stay any longer as the Mission station was still a 
considerable way off. Likewise deceived, I thought to myself as I 
hurried down the rise to get to Mr. King as quickly as I could and 
learn something concerning the previous owner of the property. 1 now 
discovered that this had been the chieftain's village. He had spent his 
youth in Georgetown, where he had found the institutions and life of 
the whites so pleasant that, when succeeding to the title, he had prided 
himself on introducing European manners and customs into his quarters. 
In this he was supported by the preliminary work of his father who, 
already making a commencement at it, had planted the fruit trees. The 
peculiar custom of the Warraus, to which tribe the settlement belonged, 
of using nothing belonging to a deceased person was the reason why 
everything lay about undisturbed like this and remained just as it was 
found at the time of the man's death. Three years later (II. 865) I 
visited the settlement again : a new chief had in the meantime moved into 
the house, but the table with the bottles and glasses still stood untouched 
in its old place, the whole having been transformed into a densely 
populated colony of spiders, and all thickly covered with their cobwebs 
616. After a while we reached the mouth of the Itabbo in the 
Morocco which we now followed. Here also a broad border of JSfymphaea 
stretched along both banks but the current made their junction in the 
middle of the stream impossible, and so the innumerable obstacles against 
which we had contended all day long suddenly disappeared. We rapidly 
made our way down stream but nightfall unfortunately completely 
blocked the view of the glorious surroundings. It was already midnight 
and the longed-for goal not yet reached. The otherwise rebellious 
