Next morning we had 'English tea' for the first and last time in West Africa; usually we preferred the Russian form, drunk in a tumbler with a slice of lime that sinks or of lemon that floats. Mr. Gillett had given us a bottle of 'Romanshorn' from the Swiss farm, an admirable preparation which also yields fresh butter. The price is high, 1_s_. 6_d_. a bottle, or, for the case of forty-eight imperial pints, 72_s_.; this, however, is the Coast, not the cost figure. For invalids, who are nauseated by the sickly, over-sugared stuff popularly called 'tin-juice,' and who feel life put in them by rum and milk, it is an invaluable comfort. We left Esubeyah in the 'lizard's sun' at 7 A.M., and found the river changed for the worse. The freshets had uptorn from the banks the tallest trees, which in places formed a timber-floor; and the surf-boat gallantly charged, till she leaked, the huge trunks, over which she had often to be lifted. Nothing would be easier than to clear away these obstacles; a few pounds of gun-cotton would remove snags and sawyers, and dredging by boats would do the rest. Then Prince's River would become an excellent highway. An hour and a half's slow paddling placed us at the landing-place of Bekai (a village in general), the usual hole in the bush. Here navigation ends in the dry season. We walked to and through the mean little settlement, and established ourselves at Anima-kru, [Footnote: The English 'croom' is a corruption of _kru-mu_ or _krum_, 'in the village.' Properly speaking 'kru' and 'man' are the town, or common centre of many _akura_ (plantation-hamlets), in which the owners keep their families and _familiae_.] a mile from the landing-place on the Yenna, or Prince's River. It faces a splendidly wooded mound upon the right or opposite bank. Mra Kwami, the headman, received us hospitably, cleared a house, and offered us the usual palm-wine and snuff: the powder, composed of tobacco, ginger, and cloves, is boxed in a round wild fruit. The village contained only two men; the rest were drinking, at Prince's town, the proceeds of a puncheon of palm-oil. The plantations still showed fruits and flowers probably left by the Portuguese--wild oranges, mangoes, limes, pine-apples, and the 'four o'clock,' a kind of 'marvel of Peru,' supposed to open at that hour. The houses, _crepi_ or parget below and bamboo above, are mere band-boxes raised from the ground; the smaller perfectly imitated poultry-crates. All appeared unusually neat and clean, with ornamental sheets of clam-shells trodden into the earth before the thresholds. 'Fetish' was abundant, and so was that worst of all plagues the sand-fly.