In The Main Stream
Of The Ogowe Below The Okana's Entrance, Is A Long Rocky Island
Called Shandi.
When we were getting over our ridge and paddling
about the Okana's entrance my ears recognised a new sound.
The rush
and roar of the Ogowe we knew well enough, and could locate which
particular obstacle to his headlong course was making him say
things; it was either those immovable rocks, which threw him back in
foam, whirling wildly, or it was that fringe of gaunt skeleton trees
hanging from the bank playing a "pull devil, pull baker" contest
that made him hiss with vexation. But this was an elemental roar.
I said to M'bo: "That's a thunderstorm away among the mountains."
"No, sir," says he, "that's the Alemba."
We paddled on towards it, hugging the right-hand bank again to avoid
the mid-river rocks. For a brief space the mountain wall ceased,
and a lovely scene opened before us; we seemed to be looking into
the heart of the chain of the Sierra del Cristal, the abruptly
shaped mountains encircling a narrow plain or valley before us, each
one of them steep in slope, every one of them forest-clad; one,
whose name I know not unless it be what is sometimes put down as Mt.
Okana on the French maps, had a conical shape which contrasted
beautifully with the more irregular curves of its companions. The
colour down this gap was superb, and very Japanese in the evening
glow.
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