The subject upon which conversation dwells longest and to which it ever returns with gruesome interest is the African fever. The news that is brought on board at each port is like a death bulletin. To the new comer it is all very trying and very tragical. But he cannot escape from it; for the Old Coaster (and a man who has been out once before is an Old Coaster) assumes the grave responsibility of impressing deeply upon the mind of the tenderfoot the serious conditions which he is about to confront. It is impressed upon him that the fever is inevitable, and that the young and healthy die first; that temperate habits instead of being a defense are a snare, and that not to drink is simply suicide. Missionaries die like flies. But then of course it comes to the same thing in the end; there is no escape; and to worry about it, or to expect it, will bring on a fever in two days. Exposure to the sun is sure to induce fever; and yet none die so quickly as those who carry umbrellas. Quinine is useless except to brace the mind of those who believe in it; but it isn’t any good. And when you get fever, you can’t escape, by leaving the coast in a hurry, even if there should be a steamer in port, which is very unlikely; for a man going aboard with fever is sure to die. Perhaps it is the horror of being buried at sea that kills him. “How is that new clerk whom I brought out for you last voyage?” asks the captain, of a trader who has come aboard for breakfast. “Poor chap!” says the trader, “he didn’t live two weeks. Another came on the next steamer, and he pegged out in three weeks. They ought to be sent out two at a time.” “You remember so-and-so,” says another; “well, poor chap! (and as soon as he says “poor chap” we know the rest) he was found dead in bed one morning since you were here. They had used up all the lumber that they had laid away for coffins, so they took half the partition out of his house, to make a coffin; and then they didn’t get it long enough. The next fellow is now living alone in that same house with half the partition gone, and of course he can’t help reflecting that there is just enough left to make another coffin; and, indeed, to judge by the way he was looking when I saw him last they may have used it by this time.” “Have you heard about the poor chap that so-and-so sent up country? Well, he died a few weeks ago. He was all alone except for the native workmen, and as soon as he died they ran away in fear. The agent got word of it and started up country immediately; but the rats had found him first.” It is only when one reflects that all these “poor chaps” were somebody’s sons, and somebody’s brothers, that one realizes the tragedy of the coast. These little conversations on board seem like the final obsequies performed for those who are dead. “Do men ever die of anything except fever?” asks a new comer.