38 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
CHAPTER III. 
Among the Fan Cannibals and the Gc rillas. 
Turning our steps northwards, we shall place ourselves 
under one of the greatest of African travellers, Sir Richard 
Burton, and pay a visit to the Gaboon country, lying to 
the north of the Congo, where we shall fine! ourselves 
among the Fa n cannibals and in the land of the gorilla. 
Sir Richard thus describes a journey up the Gaboon in 
1862, and the habits of the Fa?zs, as he saw them. 
Detestable weather detained me long at the hospitable 
factory. Tornadoes were of almost daily occurrence — 
not pleasant with 200 barrels of gunpowder under a 
thatched roof ; they were useful chiefly to the Mpongwe 
servants of the establishment. These model thieves 
broke open, under cover of the storms, a strong iron 
safe in an inner room which had been carefully closed ; 
they stole my Mboko skin, and bottles were not safe 
from them even in our bedrooms. 
My next step was to ascend the “ Olo’ Mpongwe,” or 
Gaboon River, which Bowdich (“Sketch of Gaboon”) 
calls Oroongo, and its main point Ohlombopolo. The 
object was to visit the Fail, of whose cannibalism such 
curious tales had been told. It was not easy to find a 
conveyance. The factory greatly wanted a flat-bottom 
iron steamer, a stern-wheeler, with sliding keel, and fur- 
naces fit for burning half-dried wood — a craft of fourteen 
tons, costing perhaps £14 per ton, would be ample in 
point of size, and would save not a little money to the 
trader. I was at last fortunate in securing the “ Eliza,” 
belonging to Messrs. Hatton and Cookson. She was a 
fore-and-aft schooner of twenty tons, measuring 42 feet 
6 inches over all and put up at Bonny Town by Captain 
