why the cape was not shown on the map.

"Somebody," said one of the Americans, a cowboy going out second class
on the look for new cattle country, "is a goat. It sure looks to me like
it was these yere steamboat people. They can't expect to rope nothing on
such a raw deal as this!"

To which the English assented, though in different idiom.

But now up the companion ladder struggled eight serious-minded
individuals herded by the second mate. They were armed to the teeth, and
thoroughly equipped with things I had seen in German catalogues, but in
whose existence I had never believed. A half-dozen sailors eagerly
helped them with their multitudinous effects. Not a thought gave they to
the fact that we were ten miles off the coast, that we gave no
indication of slackening speed, that it would take the rest of the day
to row ashore, that there was no cape for us to round, that if there
were--oh! all the other hundred improbabilities peculiar to the
situation. Under direction of the mate they deposited their impedimenta
beneath a tarpaulin, and took their places in solemn rows amidships
across the thwarts of the boat slung overside. The importance of the
occasion sat upon them heavily; they were going ashore--in Africa--to
Slay Wild Beasts. They looked upon themselves as of bolder, sterner
stuff than the rest of us.

When the procession first appeared, our cowboy's face for a single
instant had flamed with amazed incredulity. Then a mask of
expressionless stolidity fell across his features, which in no line
thereafter varied one iota.