The arrival of the _Dorothy_ was the most joyful event of all my years in Africa. Hitherto I had reached the Fang only by canoe or small sailboat, the latter depending upon oars more than sails. The area of the work was therefore circumscribed and the incidental exposure dreadful. But now we no longer regarded the heat by day nor the rains by night; for there was a large cabin provided with every comfort, including good beds. And this latter was a main consideration. After the arrival of the _Dorothy_ I seldom stayed in a town over night nor slept in a native bed—a few straight poles laid side by side, sometimes with the additional luxury of a grass mat. Besides a bed of poles, I escaped stifling heat, infinite noise, rats, roaches, lizards, scorpions, centipedes, ants, fleas, lice and a staggering combination of odours. In the lower rivers that flow through the mangrove swamps I also escaped the vile atmosphere and the mosquitoes by running out to the bay at night. Added to these considerations, its speed was such that I could travel against wind and tide; and by means of it the former work was multiplied many times, and spread over the whole area of the Gaboon basin. [Illustration: THE _DOROTHY_. ] The _Dorothy_ was a house-launch, and was intended only for the rivers. The walls of the cabin presented such an area to the wind that on the bay or at sea, unless in the calmest weather, it rolled as nothing else ever rolled; and in a storm it was dangerous. Ndong Koni, who had been long in my service, was captain of the _Dorothy_; the rest of the crew I had to choose with greater care than in former days, and it was difficult to find men who were qualified both by intelligence and trustworthiness. I discharged one man for disobedience in smoking a pipe over an open tank from which they were drawing gasoline. On one occasion when I was preparing for a long trip up the river, Ndong Koni was absent; and not having time myself to look after every detail of the preparation, I entrusted to one of the crew, a boy named _Toko_, the work of filling the tank with gasoline. Toko was not a Fang, but a coastman. He was so black that he seemed to radiate darkness and create a kind of twilight in his neighbourhood. The Fang were like mulattoes beside him. He had worked some time for an English trader and had picked up a smattering of very original English. On this occasion Toko assured me that he “done fill the tank proper full.” But on the return trip the engine suddenly stopped one morning at daylight: the gasoline was exhausted. We were thirty miles from home: and it was the rough bay, not the river, that stretched between. There was only one thing to do; and in a few minutes we had anchored the _Dorothy_, and had started for Gaboon in a canoe, our purpose being to get the gasoline we required and return immediately.