As we stood on the deck of the S.S. _Apobo_, under a dripping awning, we could not but be infected by the melancholy of the scene, and might doubtless have exclaimed in Roman heroics, “We who come to die salute thee,” but that we had to pack our traps and prepare for landing.
A few more miles of steaming into this “white man’s grave,” and our thoughts were diverted from the melancholy of our immediate prospect by a new and more interesting feature. There ahead of us, on the left, where creek and mangrove met, a leviathian-like object stretched its weird length far into the water, and laved its hundred limbs in the placid depths. This was the iron pier of Akassa, the then chief trading centre and depôt of the National African Company.
Soon we were enabled to distinguish the beach strewn with the relics of the ships and barges of other days, and with the boats and canoes still in use. Higher up lay piles of stores and palm-oil casks, while behind rose a series of roomy warehouses built of corrugated iron. Further seaward stood the quarters of the Company’s agents--the whole cosily ensconced in the arms of the mangrove forest, which in the distance looked fascinating, but on closer acquaintance proved to be a fever-breeding quagmire.
Such was Akassa, where throbbed with undying energy the busy current of British commercial life.
With our arrival in the river my days of ease were over, and prompt action and stern work became the order of the day. No one knew where Flegel was, or where he might turn up. With his minute knowledge of the river, he was a rival not to be despised. It behoved me, therefore, to waste no time, and accordingly, having collected such stores as were necessary, I started on my voyage in the steam launch _Français_ two days after reaching Akassa.
For the first hour we steamed up the rapidly narrowing creek till we found ourselves confronted by a dense barrier of mangrove. For an instant we seemed to be insanely heading to wreck and disaster, when all at once the wall of vegetation presented a narrow opening, and we were engulfed in its leafy depths. Could this be the Niger--the mighty river which drained the quarter of a continent--only a stream thirty yards in breadth, and some five in depth, lazily flowing seaward? That stream was formed of Niger water, but it was not the Niger.