to go back there again; and, now I come to think of it, there is
another particular in which it is like them, and that is that the
chances you have of returning from it at all are small, for it is a
Belle Dame sans merci.

I succumbed to the charm of the Coast as soon as I left Sierra Leone
on my first voyage out, and I saw more than enough during that
voyage to make me recognise that there was any amount of work for me
worth doing down there. So I warned the Coast I was coming back
again and the Coast did not believe me; and on my return to it a
second time displayed a genuine surprise, and formed an even higher
opinion of my folly than it had formed on our first acquaintance,
which is saying a good deal.

During this voyage in 1893, I had been to Old Calabar, and its
Governor, Sir Claude MacDonald, had heard me expatiating on the
absorbing interest of the Antarctic drift, and the importance of the
collection of fresh-water fishes and so on. So when Lady MacDonald
heroically decided to go out to him in Calabar, they most kindly
asked me if I would join her, and make my time fit hers for starting
on my second journey. This I most willingly did. But I fear that
very sweet and gracious lady suffered a great deal of apprehension
at the prospect of spending a month on board ship with a person so
devoted to science as to go down the West Coast in its pursuit.
During the earlier days of our voyage she would attract my attention
to all sorts of marine objects overboard, so as to amuse me. I used
to look at them, and think it would be the death of me if I had to
work like this, explaining meanwhile aloud that "they were very
interesting, but Haeckel had done them, and I was out after fresh-
water fishes from a river north of the Congo this time," fearing all