"It was dog flesh," the agent answered.

"Not really!" Frank exclaimed with an uncomfortable sensation of
sickness.

"Yes, indeed," the agent replied. "Dog's meat is considered a luxury
in Bonny, and dogs are bred specially for the table."

"You'll eat stranger things than that before you've done, Frank,"
Mr. Goodenough continued, "and will find them just as good, and in
many cases better, than those to which you are accustomed. It is
a strange thing why in Europe certain animals should be considered
fit to eat and certain animals altogether rejected, and this without
the slightest reason. Horses and donkeys are as clean feeders as
oxen and sheep. Dogs, cats, and rats are far cleaner than pigs and
ducks. The flesh of the one set is every bit as good as that of
the other, and yet the poorest peasant would turn up his nose at
them. Here sheep and oxen, horses and donkeys, will not live, and
the natives very wisely make the most of the animals which can do
so."

Frank was soon tired of Bonny, and was glad to hear that they would
start the next day for Fernando Po in a little steamer called the
Retriever. The island of Fernando Po is a very beautiful one, the
peak rising ten thousand feet above the sea, and wooded to the
very summit. Were the trees to some extent cleared away the island
might be very healthy. As it is, it is little better than the
mainland.

There was not much to see in the town of Clarence, whose population