I had been disappointed a second
time in re gorilla, and nothing now remained but a retreat, which
time rendered necessary. The down-stream voyage was an easy
matter, and it need hardly be said far less unpleasant than the
painful toil up. From the Sanjika village on the Gaboon, the
"Tem" hill was seen bearing due east (Mag.) and the Mbika 92deg..
Behind them were glimpses of blue highland, rising in lumpy and
detached masses to the east; these are evidently sub-ranges of
the western Ghats, the Sierra del Crystal, which native
travellers described to me as a serrated broken line of rocky and
barren acicular mountains; tall, gravelly, waterless, and lying
about three days' journey beyond the screen of wooded hill. It is
probably sheltered to some extent from the damp sea-breeze, and
thus to the east there would be a "lee-land," dry, healthy and
elevated, which, corresponding with Ugogo on the Zanzibar-
Tanganyika line, would account for the light complexions of the
people. Early on the morning of Thursday, April 17th, the "Eliza"
was lying off Mr. R. B. N. Walker's factory, and I was again
received with customary hospitality by Mr.
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