She Comes Up From The
Cape (Lopez) Stoking Half Wood And Half Coal As Far As Njole And
Back To Lembarene; From Lembarene To The Sea Downwards She Does On
Wood.
In a few minutes we have taken her berth close to the bank,
and tied up to a tree.
The white engineer yells to the black
engineer "Tom-Tom: Haul out some of them fire and open them drains
one time," and the stokers, with hooks, pull out the glowing logs on
to the iron deck in front of the furnace door, and throw water over
them, and the Move sends a cloud of oil-laden steam against the
bank, coming perilously near scalding some of her black admirers
assembled there. I dare say she felt vicious because they had been
admiring the Eclaireur.
After a few minutes, I am escorted on to the broad verandah of
Hatton and Cookson's factory, and I sit down under a lamp, prepared
to contemplate, until dinner time, the wild beauty of the scene.
This idea does not get carried out; in the twinkling of an eye I am
stung all round the neck, and recognise there are lots too many
mosquitoes and sandflies in the scenery to permit of contemplation
of any kind. Never have I seen sandflies and mosquitoes in such
appalling quantities. With a wild ping of joy the latter made for
me, and I retired promptly into a dark corner of the verandah,
swearing horribly, but internally, and fought them.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 117 of 705
Words from 31905 to 32155
of 194943
