Yet the dinner is copious;
the employes contribute, their rations; and thus the table shows
beef twice a week. Black cattle are imported from various parts
of the coast, north and south; perhaps those of the Kru country
stand the climate best; the Government yard is well stocked, and
the polite Commodore readily allows our cruizers to buy bullocks.
Madame also is not a "bird with a long bill;" the dinner,
including piquette, alias vin ordinaire, coffee, and the petit
verre, costs five francs to the stranger, and one franc less pays
the dejeuner a la fourchette--most men here eat two dinners. The
soi-disant Medoc (forty francs per dozen) is tolerable, and the
cassis (thirty francs) is drinkable. I am talking in the present
of things twelve years past. What a shadowy, ghostly table d'hote
it has now become to me!
After dinner appeared cigar and pipe, which were enjoyed in the
verandah: I sat up late, admiring the intense brilliancy of the
white and blue lightning, but auguring badly for the future,--
natives will not hunt during the rains. A strong wind was blowing
from the north-east, which, with the north-north-east, is here,
as at Fernando Po and Camaronen, the stormy quarter.
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