Coming Down, Fallen-
Tree-Fringed Banks And Rocks Were Converted From Friends To Foes; So
We Kept With All Our Power In The Very Centre Of The Swiftest Part
Of The Current In Order To Avoid Them.
The grandest part of the
whole time was coming down, below the Alemba, where the whole great
Ogowe takes a tiger-like spring for about half a mile, I should
think, before it strikes a rock reef below.
As you come out from
among the rocks in the upper rapid it gives you - or I should perhaps
confine myself to saying, it gave me - a peculiar internal sensation
to see that stretch of black water, shining like a burnished sheet
of metal, sloping down before one, at such an angle. All you have
got to do is to keep your canoe-head straight - quite straight, you
understand - for any failure so to do will land you the other side of
the tomb, instead of in a cheerful no-end-of-a-row with the lower
rapid's rocks. This lower rapid is one of the worst in the dry
season; maybe it is so in the wet too, for the river's channel here
turns an elbow-sharp curve which infuriates the Ogowe in a most
dangerous manner.
I hope to see the Ogowe next time in the wet season - there must be
several more of these great sheets of water then over what are rocky
rapids now. Just think what coming down over that ridge above Boko
Boko will be like! I do not fancy however it would ever be possible
to get up the river, when it is at its height, with so small a crew
as we were when we went and played our knock-about farce, before
King Death, in his amphitheatre in the Sierra del Cristal.
CHAPTER VI. LEMBARENE.
In which is given some account of the episode of the Hippopotame,
and of the voyager's attempts at controlling an Ogowe canoe; and
also of the Igalwa tribe.
I say good-bye to Talagouga with much regret, and go on board the
Eclaireur, when she returns from Njole, with all my bottles and
belongings. On board I find no other passenger; the Captain's
English has widened out considerably; and he is as pleasant, cheery,
and spoiling for a fight as ever; but he has a preoccupied manner,
and a most peculiar set of new habits, which I find are shared by
the Engineer. Both of them make rapid dashes to the rail, and
nervously scan the river for a minute and then return to some
occupation, only to dash from it to the rail again. During
breakfast their conduct is nerve-shaking. Hastily taking a few
mouthfuls, the Captain drops his knife and fork and simply hurls his
seamanlike form through the nearest door out on to the deck. In
another minute he is back again, and with just a shake of his head
to the Engineer, continues his meal. The Engineer shortly
afterwards flies from his seat, and being far thinner than the
Captain, goes through his nearest door with even greater rapidity;
returns, and shakes his head at the Captain, and continues his meal.
Excitement of this kind is infectious, and I also wonder whether I
ought not to show a sympathetic friendliness by flying from my seat
and hurling myself on to the deck through my nearest door, too. But
although there are plenty of doors, as four enter the saloon from
the deck, I do not see my way to doing this performance aimlessly,
and what in this world they are both after I cannot think. So I
confine myself to woman's true sphere, and assist in a humble way by
catching the wine and Vichy water bottles, glasses, and plates of
food, which at every performance are jeopardised by the members of
the nobler sex starting off with a considerable quantity of the
ample table cloth wrapped round their legs. At last I can stand it
no longer, so ask the Captain point-blank what is the matter.
"Nothing," says he, bounding out of his chair and flying out of his
doorway; but on his return he tells me he has got a bet on of two
bottles of champagne with Woermann's Agent for Njole, as to who
shall reach Lembarene first, and the German agent has started off
some time before the Eclaireur in his little steam launch.
During the afternoon we run smoothly along; the free pulsations of
the engines telling what a very different thing coming down the
Ogowe is to going up against its terrific current. Every now and
again we stop to pick up cargo, or discharge over-carried cargo, and
the Captain's mind becomes lulled by getting no news of the
Woermann's launch having passed down. He communicates this to the
Engineer; it is impossible she could have passed the Eclaireur since
they started, therefore she must be some where behind at a
subfactory, "N'est-ce pas?" "Oui, oui, certainement," says the
Engineer. The Engineer is, by these considerations, also lulled,
and feels he may do something else but scan the river a la sister
Ann. What that something is puzzles me; it evidently requires
secrecy, and he shrinks from detection. First he looks down one
side of the deck, no one there; then he looks down the other, no one
there; good so far. I then see he has put his head through one of
the saloon portholes; no one there; he hesitates a few seconds until
I begin to wonder whether his head will suddenly appear through my
port; but he regards this as an unnecessary precaution, and I hear
him enter his cabin which abuts on mine and there is silence for
some minutes. Writing home to his mother, think I, as I go on
putting a new braid round the bottom of a worn skirt. Almost
immediately after follows the sound of a little click from the next
cabin, and then apparently one of the denizens of the infernal
regions has got its tail smashed in a door and the heavy hot
afternoon air is reft by an inchoate howl of agony.
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