Chapter VIII.

Up the Gaboon River.



Detestable weather detained me long at the hospitable factory.
Tornadoes were of almost daily occurrence --not pleasant with 200
barrels of gunpowder under a thatched roof; they were useful
chiefly to the Mpongwe servants of the establishment. These model
thieves broke open, under cover of the storms, a strong iron safe
in an inner room which had been carefully closed; they stole my
Mboko skin, and bottles were not safe from them even in our
bedrooms.

My next step was to ascend the "Olo' Mpongwe," or Gaboon River,
which Bowdich ("Sketch of Gaboon") calls Oroongo, and its main
point Ohlombopolo. The object was to visit the Fan, of whose
cannibalism such curious tales had been told. It was not easy to
find a conveyance. The factory greatly wanted a flat-bottom iron
steamer, a stern-wheeler, with sliding keel, and furnaces fit for
burning half-dried wood--a craft of fourteen tons, costing
perhaps L14 per ton, would be ample in point of size, and would
save not a little money to the trader. I was at last fortunate in
securing the "Eliza," belonging to Messrs. Hatton and Cookson.
She was a fore-and-aft schooner of twenty tons, measuring 42 feet
6 inches over all and put up at Bonny Town by Captain Birkett.