or black bag. From the first I was haunted by a conviction that its
bottom would come out, but it never did, and in spite of the fact
that it had ideas of its own about the arrangement of its contents,
it served me well throughout my voyage.

It was the beginning of August '93 when I first left England for
"the Coast." Preparations of quinine with postage partially paid
arrived up to the last moment, and a friend hastily sent two
newspaper clippings, one entitled "A Week in a Palm-oil Tub," which
was supposed to describe the sort of accommodation, companions, and
fauna likely to be met with on a steamer going to West Africa, and
on which I was to spend seven to The Graphic contributor's one; the
other from The Daily Telegraph, reviewing a French book of "Phrases
in common use" in Dahomey. The opening sentence in the latter was,
"Help, I am drowning." Then came the inquiry, "If a man is not a
thief?" and then another cry, "The boat is upset." "Get up, you
lazy scamps," is the next exclamation, followed almost immediately
by the question, "Why has not this man been buried?" "It is fetish
that has killed him, and he must lie here exposed with nothing on
him until only the bones remain," is the cheerful answer. This
sounded discouraging to a person whose occupation would necessitate
going about considerably in boats, and whose fixed desire was to
study fetish. So with a feeling of foreboding gloom I left London
for Liverpool--none the more cheerful for the matter-of-fact manner
in which the steamboat agents had informed me that they did not
issue return tickets by the West African lines of steamers. I will
not go into the details of that voyage here, much as I am given to
discursiveness. They are more amusing than instructive, for on my
first voyage out I did not know the Coast, and the Coast did not
know me and we mutually terrified each other. I fully expected to