Further down the river we were enlivened by the presence of several passengers going to the coast to work, or perhaps to visit. Visiting is a passion with the African. It is regulated by custom, which prescribes a limit (though a very generous one) beyond which it is not lawful to extend a visit. More than once I have known of a long-suffering host speeding the departing guest by an appeal to this law. Upon every journey with the _Dorothy_ we were besieged with applications for a passage. No tickets were issued, but the fare was always a chicken, regardless of distance or destination. Ndong Koni was purser and looked after the chickens, collecting them before we started and feeding them on the journey. The people would not sell chickens to me, but would give them in pay for passage, since I would not accept anything else. I was therefore glad enough to have a few passengers, as it meant that I ate chicken instead of sardines or Armour’s sausage. Toko, who often officiated as cook, was always glad when he could make the announcement: “Mr. Milligan, I go burn a chicken for your chop.” When there were no chickens he had to “kill a tin.” The basin of the Gaboon with its network of small rivers filled by the tide, as I have said, is a contrast to the scenery of the upper river. When the tide is high the foliage of the mangrove lies upon the water and the appearance is not displeasing except for its unapproachable monotony. But when the tide is out these streams are empty or nearly so and the receding water leaves the mangroves standing up six or eight feet out of the water on their mass of vertical roots as if on tiptoe. The dripping roots are usually covered with small oysters. Below this lies the deep, black, slimy mud, sometimes only half seen through the brooding vapour and stretches forth uncanny fingers and creeps from root to root. The ugliness of it is only equalled by the smell. There is nothing more hideous in the world, and I am sure that the Styx itself flows through a mangrove swamp. Sometimes the receding tide left us stranded in this black batter for several hours, and the night consigned us to mosquitoes. But as soon as the rising tide floated us we sped to the bay, leaving mosquitoes and heat and fœtid banks behind us, and blessing the _Dorothy_.