We, Up To Our Knees In Water
That Nearly Tears Our Legs Off, Push And Shove The Canoe Free, And
Re-Embarking Return Singing "So Sir" Across The River, To Have It
Out With That Current.
We do; and at its head find a rapid, and
notice on the mountain-side a village clearing, the first sign of
human habitation we have seen to-day.
Above this rapid we get a treat of still water, the main current of
the Ogowe flying along by the south bank. On our side there are
sandbanks with their graceful sloping backs and sudden ends, and
there is a very strange and beautiful effect produced by the flakes
and balls of foam thrown off the rushing main current into the quiet
water. These whirl among the eddies and rush backwards and forwards
as though they were still mad with wild haste, until, finding no
current to take them down, they drift away into the landlocked bays,
where they come to a standstill as if they were bewildered and lost
and were trying to remember where they were going to and whence they
had come; the foam of which they are composed is yellowish-white,
with a spongy sort of solidity about it. In a little bay we pass we
see eight native women, Fans clearly, by their bright brown faces,
and their loads of brass bracelets and armlets; likely enough they
had anklets too, but we could not see them, as the good ladies were
pottering about waist-deep in the foam-flecked water, intent on
breaking up a stockaded fish-trap.
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