The sea at this hour is smooth as oil, except where ruffled by fish-shoals, and shows comparatively free, today at least, from the long Atlantic roll which lashes the flat coast east of Apollonia. Its selvage is fretted by green points, golden sands, and a red cove not unlike the crater-port of Clarence, Fernando Po. The surface is broken by two islets, apparently the terminal knobs of many reefs which project westward from the land. To the north rises Asiniba ('Son of Asini'), a pyramid of rock below and tree-growth above. Fronting the landing-place is Bobowusua, [Footnote: The Hyd. Chart calls them Suaba and Bobowassi; it might be a trifle more curious in the matter of significant words.] or Fetish Island, a double feature which we shall presently inspect. The foreshore is barred and dotted perpendicularly by black reefs and scattered _diabolitos_, or detached hard-heads, which break the surges. At spring-tides, when rise and fall reach at least ten feet, and fourteen in the equinoctial ebb and flow, it appears a gridiron of grim black stone. [Footnote: Not as the Hyd. Chart says--'rise and fall at springs six or seven feet.'] The settlement, backed by its grand 'bush' and faced by the sea, consists of a castle and a subject town; it wears, in fact, a baronial and old-world look. Fort Santo Antonio, a tall white house upon a bastioned terrace, crowns proudly enough a knob of black rock and low green growth. On both sides of it, north and south, stretches the town; from this distance it appears a straggle of brown thatched huts and hovels, enlivened here and there by some whitewashed establishments, mining or 'in the mercanteel.' The soil is ruddy and rusty, and we have the usual African tricolor. The agents of the several Aximite houses came on board. We drained the normal stirrup-cup and embarked in the usual heavy surf-boat, manned by a dozen leathery-lunged 'Elmina boys' with paddles, and a helmsman with an oar. There are smaller surf-canoes, that have weather-boards at the bow to fend off the waves. Our anchorage-place lies at least two miles south-west-and-by-south of the landing-place. There is absolutely nothing to prevent steamers running in except a sunken reef, the Pinnacle or Hoeven Rock. It is well known to every canoeman. Cameron sounded for it, and a buoy had been laid by fishermen, but so unskilfully that the surge presently made a clean sweep. Hence a wilful waste of time and work. I wrote to Messieurs Elder and Dempster, advising them to replace it for their own interests and for the convenience of travellers; but in Africa one is out of the world, and receiving answers is emphatically not the rule.