After that the _Pamir_ went south as far as Dakar. We did the whole coast, Gorée, Sierra Leone, Porto Novo--leaving coal more or less everywhere, sometimes on a gunboat, sometimes on a cruiser or at a dock. It reminded me of the old trading voyages when they made little trips from port to port to unload three tons and take on a hundred hogsheads. Only, this time, nothing doing for ordinary merchandise! There were bales and bales, clusters of bananas and ivory for the asking everywhere, more than I can tell, waiting to be shipped. Fourgues is devoured with despair to see all that mouldering when the _Pamir_ has room enough to clean up the entire coast. But he asked in vain. He was refused everywhere because he is on Government service, so we returned empty. With the bananas alone we could have paid for our return voyage. All that stuff will go to a neutral port and thence I jolly well know where! We saw a good many people down there who asked for news and details. Fourgues’ preserves and brandy were all used up because he invited so many of the poor devils who were homesick. There are some who have had three or four years in Africa and it was their turn to come home. Now they’ve got to stay on. It seems that things are going well and that Togoland and the Cameroons will not take long. But the Boches had been getting ready long ago, for away off down in the bush, guns and machine-guns of the latest type were found and heaps of ammunition. In spite of this, everybody said that the country would soon be cleared, which will make two fine colonies the less for them. The English got a number of their boats, and the Naval officers with whom we talked said that that would make a good sum in prize-money. When we told them that with us since the war, prize-money has been suppressed, and allowances and so forth, they wouldn’t believe us. As they said, the labourer is worthy of his hire, and one is more apt to hustle if there is some sort of recompense ahead. There was even one who said that we were mugs and that we should be obliged to go back to it. Fourgues wanted to jump on him, but was only half-hearted about it, for he had already told me that he thought the same. On going back to Dakar we were ordered to touch at Casablanca to await instructions. We thought it was going to be last August all over again, but not at all! There were two thousand tons of cereals waiting to be taken to Montenegro, which is starving. We brought it alongside in native boats called _barcasses_, like the furniture of the Boches, only we stowed it better! In the middle of December there is something like a swell. I spent my time saying, “That’s done it! That _barcasse_ will capsize in the surf!”--and then it didn’t after all. They know the trick, those Arabs. Fourgues was glad to have a cargo and not to be returning in ballast. He was afraid, though, that they wouldn’t send us to Montenegro after all.