UP THE OGOWE TO LAMBARENE 25 
francs duty on coming into the colony, and I pay for 
the absolute alcohol which I use for medical purposes 
the same duty as is paid on the ordinary liquor for 
drinking. 
Now the voyage continues. On the banks are the 
ruins of abandoned huts. “ When I came out here 
fifteen years ago,” said a trader who stood near me, 
“ these places were all flourishing villages.” ” And 
why are they so no longer ? ” I asked. He shrugged 
his shoulders and said in a low voice, “ L’alcohol. . . .” 
A little after sunset we lay to opposite a store, and 
two hours were spent in shipping 3,000 logs. “ If we 
had stopped here in daylight,” said the merchant to 
me, ” all the negro passengers ” (there were about sixty 
of them) ” would have gone ashore and bought spirits. 
Most of the money that the timber trade brings into 
the country is comerted into rum. I have travelled 
about in the colonies a great deal, and can say that 
rum is the great enemy of every form of civilisation.” 
Thus with the ennobling impressions that nature 
makes are mingled pain and fear ; with tlie darkness of 
the first evening on the Ogowe there lowers over one 
the shadow of the misery of Africa. Through the gloam- 
ing chimes the monotonous call, ” Make a one,” ‘‘ Make 
a cross ” ; and I feel more convinced than ever that 
this land needs to help it men who will never let them- 
selves be discouraged. 
With the help of the moon we are able to go further. 
Now we see the forest like a gigantic border on the river 
bank ; now we seem to graze its dark wall, from which 
there streams out a heat that is almost unendurable. 
The starlight lies gently on the water ; in the distance 
there is summer lightning. Soon after midnight the 
