Burton visited a number of interesting spots on
the adjoining African coasts, including Abeokuta [198] and Benin, but
no place attracted him more than the Cameroon country; and his work Two
Trips to Gorilla Land [199] is one of the brightest and raciest of all
his books. The Fan cannibals seem to have specially fascinated him. "The
Fan," he says "like all inner African tribes, with whom fighting is our
fox-hunting, live in a chronic state of ten days' war. Battles are
not bloody; after two or three warriors have fallen their corpses are
dragged away to be devoured, their friends save themselves by flight,
and the weaker side secures peace by paying sheep and goats." Burton,
who was present at a solemn dance led by the king's eldest daughter,
Gondebiza, noticed that the men were tall and upright, the women short
and stout. On being addressed "Mbolane," he politely replied "An," which
in cannibal-land is considered good form. He could not, however, bring
himself to admire Gondebiza, though the Monsieur Worth of Fanland had
done his utmost for her. Still, she must have looked really engaging
in a thin pattern of tattoo, a gauze work of oil and camwood, a dwarf
pigeon tail of fan palm for an apron, and copper bracelets and anklets.
The much talked of gorilla Burton found to be a less formidable creature
than previous travellers had reported. "The gorilla," he, says, in his
matter-of-fact way, "is a poor devil ape, not a hellish dream creature,
half man, half beast." Burton not only did not die at Fernando Po, he
was not even ill. Whenever langour and fever threatened he promptly
winged his way to his eyrie on the Pico de Sta. Isabel, where he made
himself comfortable and listened with complaisance to Lord Russell and
friends three thousand miles away fuming and gnashing their teeth.

46. The Anthropological Society, 6th Jan. 1863.

After an absence of a year and a half, Burton, as the result of his
wife's solicitation at the Foreign Office, obtained four months' leave.
He reached England in December 1862 and spent Christmas with her at
Wardour Castle, the seat of her kinsman, Lord Arundell. His mind ran
continually on the Gold Coast and its treasures. "If you will make me
Governor of the Gold Coast," he wrote to Lord Russell, "I will send home
a million a year," but in reply, Russell, with eyes unbewitched [200]
observed caustically that gold was getting too common. Burton's comment
was an explosion that terrorised