Jacot let
me have the room that the girls belonging to the mission school
usually slept in, to my great relief, before M. Jacot came home.
I will not weary you with my diary during my first stay at Kangwe.
It is a catalogue of the collection of fish, etc., that I made, and
a record of the continuous, never-failing kindness and help that I
received from M. and Mme. Jacot, and of my attempts to learn from
them the peculiarities of the region, the natives, and their
language and customs, which they both know so well and manage so
admirably. I daily saw there what it is possible to do, even in the
wildest and most remote regions of West Africa, and recognised that
there is still one heroic form of human being whose praise has never
adequately been sung, namely, the missionary's wife.
Wishing to get higher up the Ogowe, I took the opportunity of the
river boat of the Chargeurs Reunis going up to the Njole on one of
her trips, and joined her.
June 22nd. - Eclaireur, charming little stern wheel steamer,
exquisitely kept. She has an upper and a lower deck. The lower
deck for business, the upper deck for white passengers only. On the
upper deck there is a fine long deck-house, running almost her whole
length.
