Breakfast, which I could not have done, without feeling
languid afterwards, in the West Indies, but Tyrwhitt never could have
borne the breathing oven of the Gold Coast. Everything reminds me
here of the near neighbourhood of the desert; the toke and turban
very general, every man, not a Christian, a Musselman, and what seems
strange to European eyes, persons in the coarsest checks with gold
ornaments to the value of hundreds of dollars.
"The beautiful harnessed antelope, which it is really a sin to shoot,
is common in the bush, and milk, honey, and rice, are to be had in
most of the negro villages, this being quite the dairy country of
Africa. But then there are mosquitoes, that madden the best-tempered
folk, and holy men with their eyes on the Koran, ready to dirk you
for the slightest subject of difference, and it is curious to see the
strangest characters of this sort well received and admitted to a
familiarity at government house, because they have much interest in
the country, and it is politic just now to speak them fair."
Having concluded his arrangements for proceeding through the Enyong
and Eboe countries, he intended to proceed up the Calebar River, and
thence over land to Funda.
