Hence It Usually Comes About That You Have To Land On The Beach, And When You Have Done This You Make Your Way Up A Very Steep Path, Cut In The Cliffside, To The Town.

When you get there you find yourself in the very dullest town I know on the Coast.

I remember when I first landed in Clarence I found its society in a flutter of expectation and alarm not untinged with horror. Clarence, nay, the whole of Fernando Po, was about to become so rackety and dissipated as to put Paris and Monte Carlo to the blush. Clarence was going to have a cafe; and what was going to go on in that cafe I shrink from reciting.

I have little hesitation now in saying this alarm was a false one. When I next arrived in Clarence it was just as sound asleep and its streets as weed-grown as ever, although the cafe was open. My idea is that the sleepiness of the place infected the cafe and took all the go out of it. But again it may have been that the inhabitants were too well guarded against its evil influence, for there are on the island fifty-two white laymen, and fifty-four priests to take charge of them {44} - the extra two being, I presume, to look after the Governor's conduct, although this worthy man made a most spirited protest against this view when I suggested it to him; and in addition to the priests there are several missionaries of the Methodist mission, and also a white gentleman who has invented a new religion.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 57 of 705
Words from 15583 to 15853 of 194943