A long, narrow cabin, with one bunk in it and pretty
nearly everything one can wish for, and a copying press thrown in.
Food is excellent, society charming, captain and engineer quite
acquisitions.
The saloon is square and roomy for the size of the
vessel, and most things, from rowlocks to teapots, are kept under
the seats in good nautical style. We call at the guard-ship to pass
our papers, and then steam ahead out of the Gaboon estuary to the
south, round Pongara Point, keeping close into the land. About
forty feet from shore there is a good free channel for vessels with
a light draught which if you do not take, you have to make a big
sweep seaward to avoid a reef. Between four and five miles below
Pongara, we pass Point Gombi, which is fitted with a lighthouse, a
lively and conspicuous structure by day as well as night. It is
perched on a knoll, close to the extremity of the long arm of low,
sandy ground, and is painted black and white, in horizontal bands,
which, in conjunction with its general figure, give it a pagoda-like
appearance.
Alongside it are a white-painted, red-roofed house for the
lighthouse keeper, and a store for its oil. The light is either a
flashing or a revolving or a stationary one, when it is alight. One
must be accurate about these things, and my knowledge regarding it
is from information received, and amounts to the above.
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