And then the bad luck which was to follow this expedition began. The admiral of the fleet, Jacques Mahu, died suddenly of a fever and was buried at sea. Two weeks later so many men were desperately ill with the same fever that the ships were obliged to return upon their own track and establish a hospital upon one of the islands off the coast of Guinea. All this time the wind blew from the wrong direction. When at last they saw land, they found that they were near the coast of Lower Guinea. They sent a boat to the shore to discover some native tribe which owned cattle. But the natives, who feared all white men as possible slave-dealers, ran into the bushes and carefully took their possessions with them. Fortunately, after a few days another Dutch ship appeared upon the horizon, and the first mate of this vessel, a Frenchman by birth, knew the language of the negroes. Through him a message was sent to the king of a small tribe, and when it had been proved that the Hollanders were not slave-dealers, but honest merchants on their way to the Indies and willing to pay money for whatever they bought, their newly elected commander, Sebalt de Weert was received in state and invited to dine with his Majesty. [Illustration] This dinner, much to the regret of the hungry guests, was a poor affair. The negro chieftain tried to be very civil to his guests. In their honor he had powdered himself white with the ashes of a wood fire, but the food was neither abundant nor very good. The Hollanders decided to invite his Majesty to one of their own dinners as a good example and a hint. From among the few supplies which were left on board they arranged so excellent a dinner that his royal Highness ate everything on the table and then fell fast asleep in his chair. But when the next day the Hollanders tried to buy the fresh provisions which they expected to get, they found that the domains of the king produced nothing but one single goat, a lean goat at that, and four puny chickens.