A moment later I was exchanging greetings with a group of missionaries who had gathered on the beach. At this landing on the beach I observed that we were standing under a cocoa-palm. I looked up, and lo, there was no snake hanging from it. Now, the most vivid impression—in fact the only impression of Africa that I had carried thus far through life, except that of sunny fountains rolling down golden strands, was made by a picture in the old-fashioned geography; in which there were crowded together, with contempt of perspective, an elephant, a hippopotamus, a rhinoceros, a lion, a leopard, a gorilla, a chimpanzee, several other monkeys, and a python hanging from a tree. “They are all here,” said some one, in explanation; “but they are not so thick on the ground as you may have supposed.” [Illustration: REV. A. C. GOOD, Ph.D. _Dr. Good died at Efulen at the age of thirty-seven. He was a man of the Livingstone type._] III BUSH TRAVEL Upon our arrival at Batanga we at once commenced the preparations for a journey into the bush, than which nothing could have been a greater contrast to the long, idle voyage on the sea; for our physical strength and powers of endurance were to be taxed more than ever before. There were two others besides myself, Mr. Kerr, a new arrival, and the Rev. A. C. Good, an intrepid and consecrated missionary whose name was already known throughout the United States. Dr. Good had been twelve years in Africa, working most of the time among the Fang of the Ogowé River, but had lately come to Batanga for the purpose of opening the Bulu interior. The language of the Fang was so much like the Bulu that Dr. Good could converse with the latter from the first. Before the arrival of Mr. Kerr and myself Dr. Good had already made one journey into the Bulu country to a distance of seventy-five miles, where he chose the site of the first station, afterwards named Efulen. In those days nearly all the distance between Efulen and the beach was covered with dense unbroken forest. None of the Bulu as far as we knew had ever been to the coast; and no white man had ever entered that part of the interior. The Mabeya tribe, living immediately behind the coast tribe, were already in trade relations with the Bulu; so that there were roads, that is, foot-paths, through the forest. But they were seldom used, and were only a little better than none at all. The present good bush-road from Batanga to Efulen did not exist in those days. We made it ourselves after we had been there nearly a year, and it has been greatly improved from time to time. The first road which we followed made a great detour to the south, and we walked, according to Dr. Good’s calculation, seventy-five miles from Batanga to Efulen, although the distance by the present straight road is less than sixty miles.