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.
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