Arrival at “ the Bush .” 
35 
cigars. So sped my annual unlucky day, and thus 
was spent my first jungle-night almost exactly 
under the African line. 
At 5 a.m. the new morning dawned, the young 
tide flowed, the crabs disappeared, and the gig, 
before high and dry on the hard mud, once more 
became buoyant. Forward again ! The channel 
was a labyrinthine ditch, an interminable complica¬ 
tion of over-arching roots, and of fallen trees form¬ 
ing gateways ; the threshold was a maze of slimy 
stumps, stems, and forks in every stage of growth 
and decay, dense enough to exclude the air of 
heaven. In parts there were ugly snags, and 
everywhere the turns were so puzzling, that I mar¬ 
velled how a human being could attempt the pas¬ 
sage by night. The best time for ascending is half¬ 
flood, for descending half-ebb ; if the water be too 
high, the bush chokes the way; if too low, the craft 
grounds. At the Gaboon mouth the tide rises three 
feet; at the head of the Mbata Creek, where it arrests 
the sweet water rivulet, it is, of course, higher. 
And now the scene improved. The hat-palm, a 
brab or wild date, the spine-palm (Phoenix spinosa ), 
and the Okumeh or cotton-tree disputed the ground 
with the foul Rhizophora. Then clearings ap¬ 
peared. At Ejene, the second of two landing-places 
evidently leading to farms, we transferred ourselves 
to canoes, our boat being arrested by a fallen 
tree. Advancing a few yards, all disembarked 
