No One Knows, Who Has Not Been To West Africa, How
Terrible Is The Life Of A White Man In
One of these out-of-the-way
factories, with no white society, and with nothing to look at, day
out
And day in, but the one set of objects - the forest, the river,
and the beach, which in a place like Osoamokita you cannot leave for
months at a time, and of which you soon know every plank and stone.
I felt utterly wretched as I started home again to come up to the
end of the island, and go round it and down to Andande; and paddled
on for some little time, before I noticed that I was making
absolutely no progress. I redoubled my exertions, and crept slowly
up to some rocks projecting above the water; but pass them I could
not, as the main current of the Ogowe flew in hollow swirls round
them against my canoe. Several passing canoefuls of natives gave me
good advice in Igalwa; but facts were facts, and the Ogowe was too
strong for me. After about twenty minutes an old Fan gentleman came
down river in a canoe and gave me good advice in Fan, and I got him
to take me in tow - that is to say, he got into my canoe and I held
on to his and we went back down river. I then saw his intention was
to take me across to that disreputable village, half Fan, half
Bakele, which is situated on the main bank of the river opposite the
island; this I disapproved of, because I had heard that some Senegal
soldiers who had gone over there, had been stripped of every rag
they had on, and maltreated; besides, it was growing very late, and
I wanted to get home to dinner. I communicated my feelings to my
pilot, who did not seem to understand at first, so I feared I should
have to knock them into him with the paddle; but at last he
understood I wanted to be landed on the island and duly landed me,
when he seemed much surprised at the reward I gave him in pocket-
handkerchiefs. Then I got a powerful young Igalwa dandy to paddle
me home.
I did not go to the island next day, but down below Fula, watching
the fish playing in the clear water, and the lizards and birds on
the rocky high banks; but on my next journey round to the factories
I got into another and a worse disaster. I went off there early one
morning; and thinking the only trouble lay in getting back up the
Ogowe, and having developed a theory that this might be minimised by
keeping very close to the island bank, I never gave a thought to
dangers attributive to going down river; so, having by now acquired
pace, my canoe shot out beyond the end rocks of the island into the
main stream. It took me a second to realise what had happened, and
another to find out I could not get the canoe out of the current
without upsetting it, and that I could not force her back up the
current, so there was nothing for it but to keep her head straight
now she had bolted.
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