, the ordinary value of porter's rations.
Next day (March 23) we left Tumento at 7.30 A.M. The caravan consisted of
thirty-two men, all told--canoe-men from Axim, Tumento bearers, boatswain,
and my three body-servants. All were under the command of Joe the
Indefatigable, who formed a kind of body-guard of gun-carriers out of the
porters that carried the lightest packs. Mr. Dawson assisted me in
collecting; Paul prepared to shoulder a bed, and the boatswain was ordered
to catch butterflies. The cries of 'batli,' 'basky,' and 'bokkus' (bottle,
basket, and box) continually broke the silence of the bush and gladdened
the collector's ears. I was still able to dispense with the hammock.
In the first few minutes the path trends southwards; it then assumes and
keeps an easterly direction. Here is a water-parting: the many little
beds, mostly full of water, flow either north towards the Abonsa or south
and westwards to the Ancobra. They are divided by detached hills, or
rather oblong mounds, of the same formation as the beds; quartz, gravel,
and red clay, all disposed in the usual direction. Women's washings were
seen everywhere along the road, and in some places oozings of iron from
the soil heavily charged the streamlets.
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