Scaling the low crumbling wall, I entered and looked about me. The whole place was choked with a riotous profusion of vegetation. The ground was almost hidden by the feathery masses of the little sensitive mimosa, whose leaves shrink away and close up at a touch; low bushes and small trees were scattered about, and here and there clumps of cactus and branching euphorbias rose out of the tangle. But of cultivation there was no trace. The most singular feature of the place was the large number of ant-hills--sugar-loafed structures of bright red earth from eight to ten feet high--of which a dozen or more were grouped quite near together. From one of these I noticed an angular piece of white stone projecting, and, wondering how a piece of stone could have got into such a situation, I drew out my knife and endeavoured to dig it out, when to my astonishment it turned out to be one arm of a monumental cross around which the ant-hill had been built. This discovery led me to examine the place more narrowly, with the result that, by dragging aside creepers and bushes and scraping away portions of other ant-hills, I found no less than seven flat gravestones, each with a marble tablet let into it on which was engraved a name and a scripture reference. All the names were German, and mostly those of men. So this was all that was left of the Anyáko mission! It was a solemn sight to look upon, and fraught with a suggestiveness that was by no means pleasant; one of those disagreeable reminders with which West Africa is apt to salute the intrusive white man. I sat down upon a flat slab that I had just cleared, lost in gloomy meditation, insensibly contrasting the bright face of nature with the sad and pathetic relics around; glancing at the blue, sunny sky, the gay vegetation, the gem-like sun birds that hovered round the cactus, and the great blue-bodied lizard that nodded his scarlet head at me from the top of an ant-hill, and thinking of the “pestilence that walketh in the noon-day” amidst all this exuberant life and light. My reflections were interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the path outside, and looking up, I perceived a figure approaching which, by its tall black hat, long black coat and black umbrella could be that of none other than Pereira. “Aha!” he exclaimed as he came up. “Meditating among the tombs? And a very fitting occupation for a coaster.” He furled his umbrella, and leaning his arms on the wall, looked round. “Yes,” he continued, “here is West Africa in a nutshell; a most concise epitome. I knew all these men, Englefield, and the first of them came here less than a dozen years ago. And here they are; and so the world wags in Africa. The white man comes out full of life and energy and purpose. The jungle laughs and covers him up and he is straightway forgotten. Then more come, and the act is repeated _da capo_, and so on. But what have we here?”