CHAPTER XV. FETISH--(Continued).
CHAPTER XVI. FETISH--(Concluded).
CHAPTER XVII. ASCENT OF THE GREAT PEAK OF CAMEROONS.
CHAPTER XVIII. THE GREAT PEAK OF CAMEROONS--(Continued).
CHAPTER XIX. THE GREAT PEAK OF CAMEROONS--(Continued).
CHAPTER XX. THE GREAT PEAK OF CAMEROONS--(Concluded).
CHAPTER XXI. TRADE AND LABOUR IN WEST AFRICA.
CHAPTER XXII. DISEASE IN WEST AFRICA.
APPENDIX. THE INVENTION OF THE CLOTH LOOM.



PREFACE



TO THE READER.--What this book wants is not a simple Preface but an
apology, and a very brilliant and convincing one at that.
Recognising this fully, and feeling quite incompetent to write such
a masterpiece, I have asked several literary friends to write one
for me, but they have kindly but firmly declined, stating that it is
impossible satisfactorily to apologise for my liberties with Lindley
Murray and the Queen's English. I am therefore left to make a
feeble apology for this book myself, and all I can personally say is
that it would have been much worse than it is had it not been for
Dr. Henry Guillemard, who has not edited it, or of course the whole
affair would have been better, but who has most kindly gone through
the proof sheets, lassoing prepositions which were straying outside
their sentence stockade, taking my eye off the water cask and fixing
it on the scenery where I meant it to be, saying firmly in pencil on