Monday. 5th day of September 1859.
Noon
Drawing close to Fernando Po. The island is dominated by a huge conical peak, clothed in tropical forest. We’re drifting toward a cove, Clarence Bay, by the charts. If we make land, we can at least lay up until the weather changes.
10.00 p.m.
Ashore. At 4.40 p.m., the Royal Charter touched ground just off a narrow beach, backed by steep banks of yellow clay. I led a landing party and a small crowd of people greeted us. We followed them up ladders and, beyond the top of the banks, discovered a row of buildings, newly erected by recently arrived Spanish colonists and christened Santa Isabel. Already, the dwellings are rotten and infested with vermin and their inhabitants are languid to the point of semi-consciousness, gripped by deadly ennui and disease.
After leaving the ship, we discovered that our matches were strike-able once more and we took to our tobacco with much enthusiasm, yet as soon as we stepped back aboard, no combustion was possible. Whatever the atmospheric disturbance is, it’s somehow clinging to the vessel, so other than a rotating watch of seven men, the crew and passengers have abandoned her and are all put up in filthy lodgings. I fear for the women and children. This is no kind of place for them.
Tuesday. 6th day of September 1859.
2.00 a.m.
Can’t sleep. There are drums thundering from somewhere inland. They’ve not let up for a single moment since the sun set.
11.30 a.m.
Humidity, sandflies, mosquitoes, prickly heat. This place is unbearable. The vegetation hangs limply beneath the blinding sky. Everything’s still, as in death.
Wednesday. 7th day of September 1859.
9.00 p.m.
The governor of Santa Isabel, a man named de Ruvigas, has advised us to move inland to a town called Santa Cecilia, which is some 1,300 feet above sea level and less dangerous to health. Tomorrow we’ll do so, remaining there until the weather improves, or until we can fire-up the ship’s engines.
Thursday. 8th day of September 1859.
2.00 a.m.
The drums. On and on. I feel I might lose my mind.
6.00 p.m.
Leaving the watch aboard ship, I today led the crew and passengers inland along a steeply ascending jungle trail until we arrived, exhausted, at Santa Cecilia. The village is little more than a huddle of shacks, all raised up on poles in the centre of a wide clearing, but the inhabitants willingly made room for us in return for gifts of alcohol, tobacco, pocket watches, rings, belts, and whatever else we could afford to give them. The female passengers have set about cleaning the place up.
Midnight
The air is fresher here. The mosquitoes less numerous. But the drums are just as insistent.
Saturday. 10th day of September 1859.
3.00 p.m.
I’m remiss in my log-keeping. The days are endless, the nights worse.
Monday. 12th day of September 1859.
8.00 p.m.
We feel we are being watched. The women grip each other, their faces taut with fear. The men have become strangely quiet. I find myself checking my pistol again and again.
Tuesday. 13th day of September 1859.
3.00 p.m.
Such torpor. Sleep evades us but we slip in and out of prolonged periods of dark reverie, almost a trance, wherein we are paralysed by a sense of being examined, like pinned insects.
5.30 p.m.
From 3.00 p.m. until 5.00 p.m. every day, clouds form with astonishing rapidity and rain falls in a solid sheet. The thunder is as violent as I’ve ever heard. Our huts leak, and after the downpour we crawl from them soaked to the skin to dry ourselves beneath the returned sun. It’s causing our clothes to rot from our backs. By all that’s Holy, I’ve never beheld such a ragged band of miserable souls.
Friday. 16th day of September 1859.
7.00 p.m.
I dread nightfall and the commencement of the drumming. There’s been so little sleep, I’m in a state of living dream. More difficult than ever to maintain this log.
Monday. 19th day of September 1859.
9.00 a.m.
Last night, I was roused by Seaman Joseph Rodgers, who was near hysterical and swearing blind that, “The devil himself is among us.” It took nigh on an hour to calm him.
Tuesday. 20th day of September 1859.
8.00 p.m.
Another day has passed like an opium dream and now the drums have begun their nightly torment. A terrible sense of menace pervades the village.
Tuesday. 27th day of September 1859.
11.00 a.m.
A week has gone by in a haze, with no attention paid to this record. I remember nothing of what’s passed, if anything has, beyond the repetitive torture of heat, rain, and drums, heat, rain, and drums. We’ve had twenty-seven days now without the merest hint of a breeze; twenty-two days on this loathsome lump of rock. Writing exhausts me.
3.00 p.m.
Something brought us here. Something is holding us captive. None of this is natural. God help us.
Wednesday. 5th day of October 1859.
11.30 a.m.
Joseph Rodgers and a passenger, John Judge, have suggested we investigate the source of the drumming. By Christ, we do something or we remain here and die of languor, so I’ve agreed, and will lead the expedition myself. I pray I can raise strength enough for it.
4.00 p.m.
It’ll be just the three of us. The rest lie limp and vacant-eyed. A stiff climb faces us, for our hosts insist that the drummers are located in a crater, called the Pico Santa Isabel, at the top of the central mountain, which is obviously an ancient and dormant volcano. We’ll set out at dawn.
Thursday. 6th day of October 1859.
7.00 p.m.
The climb is steep but not impossibly so. There’s a trail with steps cut into the sheerest stretches. John Judge is a giant, Herculean in strength and endurance, but Rodgers and I are all too mortal. The heat sucks out what little energy we’ve been able to muster. Frequent stops necessary. No progress at all when the rains came. Nevertheless, we’ve covered a good distance. We’ll reach the peak tomorrow. For now, Rodgers has made a little fire, which we’ll huddle around while we endure the night and the damnable drums.
Friday. 7th day of October 1859.
6.30 a.m.
Not a wink of sleep. The feeling of looming menace is overpowering. We’re resuming our ascent.
Saturday. 8th day of October 1859.
8.00 p.m.
Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, until these calamities have passed by.
We achieved the summit yesterday at 4.00 p.m. and stood at the lip of the crater. On the opposite side, a village, from which the nocturnal drumming no doubt emanates, has been built around about a quarter of the depression’s outer edge. Its inhabitants soon spotted us, but rather than approach, they simply stared.
We paid them little attention; our eyes were pulled down to the incredible object lying amid the bubbling pools at the base of the bowl. It appeared to be the aurora borealis, somehow condensed into a globe, about two hundred feet in diameter, but with a large section missing, like a bite from an apple. As we descended toward it, details began to stand out. Though formed entirely from light, the apparition started to remind me of a steam sphere, though of gigantic proportions. There were rows of rivet-like protrusions, portholes, and the missing section was seemingly lined with broken spars and torn plating, as if exploded from within.