48 The Granite Pillar of Kinsembo. 
sometimes kept waiting fourteen days, and the 
“barreiras” (cliffs) are everywhere at unbounded 
war with the waters. I determined to land and 
to inspect the “ remarkable lofty granite pillar,” 
which was dimly visible from our deck; but we 
rowed in vain along the tall and rusty sea-walls. 
No whaler could attack the huge rollers that raised 
their monstrous backs, plunged over with a furious 
roar, and bespread the beach with a swirl of foam. 
At last, seeing a fine surf-boat, artistically raised at 
stern and bow, and manned by Cabindas, the Kru- 
boys of the coast, made fast to a ship belonging to 
Messrs. Tobin of Liverpool, we boarded it, and 
obtained a passage. 
The negroes showed their usual art. Paddling 
westward they rounded the high red and white 
South Point, where a projecting reef broke the 
rollers. We waited for some twenty minutes for 
a lull ; at the auspicious moment every throat 
was strained by a screaming shout, and the black 
backs bent doughtily to their work. We were 
raised like infants in the nurse’s arms; the good 
craft was flung forward with the seething mass, 
and as she touched shore we sprang out, whilst 
our conveyance was beached by a crowd of strag¬ 
glers. The dreaded bar is as usual double : in 
the heaviest weather boats make for a solitary 
palm-tree at the bottom of the sandy bay. Some 
of the dug-outs are in pairs like the Brazilian 
