From Bonny I went on to the Old Calabar river, called by the natives Kalaba and Oróne, which, though always included with the outfalls of the Niger under the general title of Oil Rivers, is an entirely distinct stream. After twenty hours’ steaming from Bonny we entered the estuary of the river, and, crossing the bar, ascended the stream, which, in comparison with the wide reach of Bonny river, seemed small and contracted, though it is of fair size, and very deep. About ten miles from the bar we passed Parrot Island, an isle in the centre of the river, covered with a dense growth of mangrove trees, and entered upon a narrower channel to the right of the island. The banks were thickly wooded, and it was a strange sight to see a large steamer pursuing its way in the midst of a dense forest, and within a stone’s throw of the bank. The far-spreading branches brushed the yards of the ship, and the alligators, disturbed by the stroke of the propeller, lazily crawled out of the black mud in which they had been wallowing. As at this part of the stream the navigable channel follows very closely the eastern bank, it is no uncommon occurrence for sailing-ships ascending and descending to get their rigging fouled with the overhanging branches. Thirty miles from the entrance of the river we anchored off Duke-town, where lie the hulks of the traders: the stream here is half-a-mile in breadth, and there is sufficient draught of water for vessels of 2,000 tons. Duke-town is more pleasantly situated, better built, and larger, than Bonny-town, and the natives are of a less barbarous type. The town stands on a hill which slopes gently towards the river, and behind it the ground rises into a kind of plateau, a good deal of which is under cultivation, and where there is a thriving American Mission station. For the European traders, however, who live in hulks and very rarely go ashore, Old Calabar is perhaps a more unpleasant place of residence than Bonny. Opposite and below Duke-town are the same mangrove swamps, at low water the same reeking mud, at night the same malarial fog; while the water of the river is of a more filthy description than that of Bonny (to bathe in it is said to cause a loathsome skin disease); the stream is only one-third of the width of the former, and Duke-town, being so far inland, is deprived of the sea-breeze, which at Bonny helps one to drag out a miserable existence; the heat, therefore, is most oppressive.