We could not see either the west or east
termination of it, for it lay like a rotten serpent twisted between
the mangroves.
It never entered into our heads to try to cross it,
for when a swamp is too deep for mangroves to grow in it, "No bottom
lib for them dam ting," as a Kruboy once said to me, anent a small
specimen of this sort of ornament to a landscape. But we just
looked round to see which direction we had better take. Then I
observed that the roots, aerial and otherwise, were coated in mud,
and had no leaves on them, for a foot above our heads. Next I
noticed that the surface of the mud before us had a sort of quiver
running through it, and here and there it exhibited swellings on its
surface, which rose in one place and fell in another. No need for
an old coaster like me to look at that sort of thing twice to know
what it meant, and feeling it was a situation more suited to Mr.
Stanley than myself, I attempted to emulate his methods and
addressed my men. "Boys," said I, "this beastly hole is tidal, and
the tide is coming in. As it took us two hours to get to this
sainted swamp, it's time we started out, one time, and the nearest
way. It's to be hoped the practice we have acquired in mangrove
roots in coming, will enable us to get up sufficient pace to get out
on to dry land before we are all drowned." The boys took the hint.
Fortunately one of the Ajumbas had been down in Ogowe, it was Gray
Shirt, who "sabed them tide palaver." The rest of them, and the
Fans, did not know what tide meant, but Gray Shirt hustled them
along and I followed, deeply regretting that my ancestors had parted
prematurely with prehensile tails, for four limbs, particularly when
two of them are done up in boots and are not sufficient to enable
one to get through a mangrove swamp network of slimy roots rising
out of the water, and swinging lines of aerial ones coming down to
the water a la mangrove, with anything approaching safety.
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