I Anxiously Inquired
Where My Profits Were To Come In.
Obanjo who had all the time
suspected me of having trade motives, artfully said, "What for you
come across from Ogowe?
You say, see this country. Ah! I say you
come with me. I show you plenty country, plenty men, elephants,
leopards, gorillas. Oh! plenty thing. Then you say where's my
trade?" I disclaimed trade motives in a lordly way. Then says he,
"You come with me up there." I said I'd see about it later on, for
the present I had seen enough men, elephants, gorillas and leopards,
and I preferred to go into wild districts under the French flag to
any flag. I am still thinking about taking that voyage, but I'll
not march through Coventry with the crew we had down the Rembwe -
that's flat, as Sir John Falstaff says. Picture to yourselves, my
friends, the charming situation of being up a river surrounded by
rapacious savages with a lot of valuable goods in a canoe and with
only a crew to defend them possessed of such fighting mettle as our
crew had demonstrated themselves to be. Obanjo might be all right,
would be I dare say; but suppose he got shot and you had eighteen
stone odd of him thrown on your hands in addition to your other
little worries. There is little doubt such an excursion would be
rich in incident and highly interesting, but I am sure it would be,
from a commercial point of view, a failure.
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