It Was Fortunate, You Will Please
Understand, For My Future, That I Have Usually Been On Vessels Of
The British
African or the African lines when voyaging about this
West African sea-board, as the owners of these vessels prohibit
The
use of bad language on board, or goodness only knows what words I
might not have remembered and used in the Gaboon estuary.
We left Agonjo with as much bustle and shouting and general air of
brisk seamanship as Obanjo could impart to the affair, and the
hopeful mind might have expected to reach somewhere important by
nightfall. I did not expect that; neither, on the other hand, did I
expect that after we had gone a mile and only four, as the early
ballad would say, that we should pull up and anchor against a small
village for the night; but this we did, the captain going ashore to
see for cargo, and to get some more crew.
There were grand times ashore that night, and the captain returned
on board about 2 A.M. with some rubber and pissava and two new hands
whose appearance fitted them to join our vessel; for a more
villainous-looking set than our crew I never laid eye on. One
enormously powerful fellow looked the incarnation of the horrid
negro of buccaneer stories, and I admired Obanjo for the way he kept
them in hand. We had now also acquired a small dug-out canoe as
tender, and a large fishing-net.
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