He adds, “In Fernando Po, an island which I would recommend as a sanatorium for wealthy hypochondriacs, we found an extraordinary abundance of fruit, cocoa-nuts, bananas, mangoes, delicious oranges, and pine-apples...The ivory trade on the Gaboon is very flourishing.  A German firm which I visited exports, L10,000 worth per annum, the value of total exports being, L26,000.  The tusks are very large; one weighed about 80 lbs., and some have ranged to 120 lbs.  The other articles exported are gum and ebony, which are brought by the natives, especially the Fans and Mpangwes (sic) from the interior.  The slave trade is said still to be carried on by Europeans, though it is not known where the slaves go to " (of course to Sao Thome and Prince’s Island).  “In the immediate vicinity of our station the chief trade is in palm oil and ground nuts.....  Rings, chains, crosses, watches, &c., are readily taken by the savages in exchange for native goods, and I obtained a valuable fetish for a chain and a cross worth a silbergroschen.”

After three months spent upon the coast, and much suffering from fever, the energetic Dr. Bastian was welcomed home on December 13, 1873.  His present book[FN#1] makes only one instalment of the work, the other being the “Correspondenzblatter der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft.”  Briefly, everything has been done to lay the foundation for success and to advertise the undertaking.  Finally, not satisfied with these steps, the German Society for the Exploration of equatorial Africa organized in September, 1874, a second expedition.  Captain Alexander von Homeyer, a well-known ornithologist, will lead it via S. Paulo de Loanda and Cassange (Kasanji) to the mysterious lands of the Mwata ya Nvo, and thus supplement the labours of Portuguese travellers.  This fine undertaking set out early in 1875.

Chapter II.

To Sao Paulo De Loanda.

At Loango, by invitation of Commander Hoskins, R.N., I transferred myself on board H.M.  Steamship “Zebra,” one of the nymphs of the British navy, and began the 240 miles southwards.  There was no wind except a slant at sunset, and the current often carried us as far backwards as the sails drove us onwards.  The philosophic landlubber often wonders at the eternal restlessness of his naval brother-man, who ever sighs for a strong wind to make the port, and who in port is ever anxious to get out of it.  I amused myself in the intervals of study with watching the huge gulls, which are skinned and found good food at Fernando Po, and in collecting the paper-nautilus.  The Ocythoe Cranchii was often found inside the shell, and the sea was streaked as with cotton-flecks by lines of eggs several inches long, a mass of mucus with fine membraneous structure adhering to the rocks, and coagulating in spirits or salt water.  The drum-fish was not heard except when we were at anchor; its sound somewhat suggests a distant frog-concert,