I Watched Them, As We Leisurely Stole Past, With A
Sort Of Fascination.
On the second night, towards the dawn, I had
the great joy of seeing Mount Okoneto, away to the S.W., first
showing moonlit, and then taking the colours of the dawn before they
reached us down below.
Ah me! give me a West African river and a
canoe for sheer good pleasure. Drawbacks, you say? Well, yes, but
where are there not drawbacks? The only drawbacks on those Rembwe
nights were the series of horrid frights I got by steering on to
tree shadows and thinking they were mud banks, or trees themselves,
so black and solid did they seem. I never roused the watch
fortunately, but got her off the shadow gallantly single-handed
every time, and called myself a fool instead of getting called one.
My nautical friends carp at me for getting on shadows, but I beg
them to consider before they judge me, whether they have ever
steered at night down a river quite unknown to them an unhandy
canoe, with a bed-sheet sail, by the light of the moon. And what
with my having a theory of my own regarding the proper way to take a
vessel round a corner, and what with having to keep the wind in the
bed-sheet where the bed-sheet would hold it, it's a wonder to me I
did not cast that vessel away, or go and damage Africa.
By daylight the Rembwe scenery was certainly not so lovely, and
might be slept through without a pang. It had monotony, without
having enough of it to amount to grandeur. Every now and again we
came to villages, each of which was situated on a heap of clay and
sandy soil, presumably the end of a spit of land running out into
the mangrove swamp fringing the river. Every village we saw we went
alongside and had a chat with, and tried to look up cargo in the
proper way. One village in particular did we have a lively time at.
Obanjo had a wife and home there, likewise a large herd of goats,
some of which he was desirous of taking down with us to sell at
Gaboon. It was a pleasant-looking village, with a clean yellow
beach which most of the houses faced. But it had ramifications in
the interior. I being very lazy, did not go ashore, but watched the
pantomime from the bamboo staging. The whole flock of goats enter
at right end of stage, and tear violently across the scene,
disappearing at left. Two minutes elapse. Obanjo and his gallant
crew enter at right hand of stage, leg it like lamplighters across
front, and disappear at left. Fearful pow-wow behind the scenes.
Five minutes elapse. Enter goats at right as before, followed by
Obanjo and company as before, and so on da capo. It was more like a
fight I once saw between the armies of Macbeth and Macduff than
anything I have seen before or since; only our Rembwe play was
better put on, more supers, and noise, and all that sort of thing,
you know.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 190 of 371
Words from 99577 to 100106
of 194943