So I Warned The Coast I Was Coming Back
Again And The Coast Did Not Believe Me; And On My
Return to it a
second time displayed a genuine surprise, and formed an even higher
opinion of my folly than
It had formed on our first acquaintance,
which is saying a good deal.
During this voyage in 1893, I had been to Old Calabar, and its
Governor, Sir Claude MacDonald, had heard me expatiating on the
absorbing interest of the Antarctic drift, and the importance of the
collection of fresh-water fishes and so on. So when Lady MacDonald
heroically decided to go out to him in Calabar, they most kindly
asked me if I would join her, and make my time fit hers for starting
on my second journey. This I most willingly did. But I fear that
very sweet and gracious lady suffered a great deal of apprehension
at the prospect of spending a month on board ship with a person so
devoted to science as to go down the West Coast in its pursuit.
During the earlier days of our voyage she would attract my attention
to all sorts of marine objects overboard, so as to amuse me. I used
to look at them, and think it would be the death of me if I had to
work like this, explaining meanwhile aloud that "they were very
interesting, but Haeckel had done them, and I was out after fresh-
water fishes from a river north of the Congo this time," fearing all
the while that she felt me unenthusiastic for not flying over into
the ocean to secure the specimens.
However, my scientific qualities, whatever they may amount to, did
not blind this lady long to the fact of my being after all a very
ordinary individual, and she told me so - not in these crude words,
indeed, but nicely and kindly - whereupon, in a burst of gratitude to
her for understanding me, I appointed myself her honorary aide-de-
camp on the spot, and her sincere admirer I shall remain for ever,
fully recognising that her courage in going to the Coast was far
greater than my own, for she had more to lose had fever claimed her,
and she was in those days by no means under the spell of Africa.
But this is anticipating.
It was on the 23rd of December, 1894, that we left Liverpool in the
Batanga, commanded by my old friend Captain Murray, under whose care
I had made my first voyage. On the 30th we sighted the Peak of
Teneriffe early in the afternoon. It displayed itself, as usual, as
an entirely celestial phenomenon. A great many people miss seeing
it. Suffering under the delusion that El Pico is a terrestrial
affair, they look in vain somewhere about the level of their own
eyes, which are striving to penetrate the dense masses of mist that
usually enshroud its slopes by day, and then a friend comes along,
and gaily points out to the newcomer the glittering white triangle
somewhere near the zenith.
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