The Factories. 
65 
with high walls, guards the offices and the other 
requisites of a barracoon. It is fronted by a little 
village where “ Laptots,” Senegal Moslems, and 
men-at-arms live with their families and slaves. 
In the rear stands the far more modest and con¬ 
scientious establishment of Messrs. Pencoff and 
Kerdyk : their plank bungalow is full of work, 
whilst the other lies idle; so virtue here is not, as 
in books, its own reward. 
M. Victor Parrot, the young Swiss agent of M. 
Regis, hospitably asked us to take up our quarters 
with him, and promised to start us up stream 
without delay; his employer fixes the tariff of 
every article, and no discretion is left to the sub¬ 
ordinates. We called upon M. Elkman of the 
Dutch factory. His is a well-known name on the 
river, and, though familiar with the people, he has 
more than once run some personal risk by assisting 
our cruizers to make captures. He advised us to 
lose no time in setting out before the impending 
rains : I wanted, however, a slight preparation for 
travel, and determined to see something of the 
adjoining villages, especially the site of the historic 
Padrao. 
Whilst crossing the stream, we easily under¬ 
stood how the river was supposed to be in a per¬ 
petual state of inundation. The great breadth and 
the shallows near either jaw prevent the rain- 
floods being perceptible unless instruments are used, 
11 . 
F 
