The Tornado. 
3 1 
Africa : the natives learn a smattering sufficient 
for business purposes and foreigners remain with¬ 
out the key to knowledge; hence our small 
progress in understanding negro human nature. 
Had we so acted in British India, we should 
probably have held the proud position which now 
contents us in China as in Western Africa, with 
factories and hulks at Bombay, Calcutta, Karachi, 
and Madras. 
From Comte de Paris Roads the southern 
Gaboon shore is called in charts Le Paletuvier, 
the Mangrove Bank ; the rhizophora is the growth 
of shallow brackish water, and at the projections 
there are fringings of reefs and “ diabolitos,” 
dangerous to boats. After two hours we crossed 
the Mombe (Mombay) Creek-mouth, with its out¬ 
lying rocks, and passed the fishing village of 
Nenga-Oga, whence supplies are sent daily to the 
Plateau. Then doubling a point of leek-green 
grass, based upon comparatively poor soil, sand, 
and clay, and backed by noble trees, we entered 
the Mbata River, the Toutiay of the chart and the 
Batta Creek of M. du Chaillu’s map. It comes 
from the south-west, and it heads much nearer the 
coast than is shown on paper. 
Presently the blood-red sun sank like a fire- 
balloon into the west, flushing with its last fierce 
beams the higher clouds of the eastern sky, and 
lighting the white and black plume of the soaring 
