could not be disregarded. In any case a journey up-river was full of
peril. Every bend brought one to a new tribe, alert, suspicious,
threatening. For Europeans it was a foodless country, in which they had
to face hunger, fever, and death. Even the missionaries had only been
feeling their way very slowly: they explored and planted out stations
here and there, as permission was obtained from the chiefs, but their
main efforts were directed to the task of establishing a strong base at
the coast.

The estuary is about twelve miles in breadth, its banks are lined by
mangrove, and here and there its surface is broken by islands. From
these, as the steamer passed, parrots flew in flocks. From the
sandbanks and mudbanks alligators slid into the water with a splash.
Occasionally a shrimp-fisher in his canoe was seen. Higher up were the
ruins of the barracoons, where the slaves were penned while waiting for
shipment. Some fifty miles from the sea the steamer swung round to the
east and entered the Calabar River; the swamps gave place to clay
cliffs thick with undergrowth and trees, and far ahead a cluster of
houses came into view--this, Mary knew, was Old Town. Then the hulks in
the stream, used as stores and homes by the traders, appeared, and the
steamer anchored opposite Duke Town. It lay on the right among swamps
in a receding hollow of the cliff: a collection of mud-dwellings
thatched with palm leaf, slovenly and sordid, and broiling in the hot
rays of a brilliant sun.

It was the scene she had often endeavoured to picture in her mind.
There was the hill where into the bush the dead bodies of natives used
to be cast to become the food of wild beasts, now crowned with the
Mission buildings. What memories had already gathered about these! What
experiences lay behind the men and women who lived there! What a land