She Has Attained Immortality Some Years Since, By Falling
Down Stairs One Saturday Night From Excitement Arising From "The
Image's" (Mr. Harragan) Conduct; But We Have No Mrs. Harragan In
Africa.
The African lady does not care a travelling whitesmith's
execration if her husband does flirt, so long as he does not go and
give to other women the cloth, etc., that she should have.
The more
wives the less work, says the African lady; and I have known men who
would rather have had one wife and spent the rest of the money on
themselves, in a civilised way, driven into polygamy by the women;
and of course this state of affairs is most common in nonslave-
holding tribes like the Fan.
Mission work was first opened upon the Ogowe by Dr. Nassau, the
great pioneer and explorer of these regions. He was acting for the
American Presbyterian Society; but when the French Government
demanded education in French in the schools, the stations on the
Ogowe, Lembarene (Kangwe), and Talagouga were handed over to the
Mission Evangelique of Paris, and have been carried on by its
representatives with great devotion and energy. I am unsympathetic,
in some particulars, for reasons of my own, with Christian missions,
so my admiration for this one does not arise from the usual ground
of admiration for missions, namely, that however they may be carried
on, they are engaged in a great and holy work; but I regard the
Mission Evangelique, judging from the results I have seen, as the
perfection of what one may call a purely spiritual mission.
Lembarene is strictly speaking a district which includes Adanlinan
langa and the Island, but the name is locally used to denote the
great island in the Ogowe, whose native name is Nenge Ezangy; but
for the sake of the general reader I will keep to the everyday term
of Lembarene Island.
Lembarene Island is the largest of the islands on the Ogowe. It is
some fifteen miles long, east and west, and a mile to a mile and a
half wide. It is hilly and rocky, uniformly clad with forest, and
several little permanent streams run from it on both sides into the
Ogowe. It is situated 130 miles from the sea, at the point, just
below the entrance of the N'guni, where the Ogowe commences to
divide up into that network of channels by which, like all great
West African rivers save the Congo, it chooses to enter the Ocean.
The island, as we mainlanders at Kangwe used to call it, was a great
haunt of mine, particularly after I came down from Talagouga and saw
fit to regard myself as competent to control a canoe.
From Andande, the beach of Kangwe, the breadth of the arm of the
Ogowe to the nearest village on the island, was about that of the
Thames at Blackwall. One half of the way was slack water, the other
half was broadside on to a stiff current. Now my pet canoe at
Andande was about six feet long, pointed at both ends, flat
bottomed, so that it floated on the top of the water; its freeboard
was, when nothing was in it, some three inches, and the poor thing
had seen trouble in its time, for it had a hole you could put your
hand in at one end; so in order to navigate it successfully, you had
to squat in the other, which immersed that to the water level but
safely elevated the damaged end in the air. Of course you had to
stop in your end firmly, because if you went forward the hole went
down into the water, and the water went into the hole, and forthwith
you foundered with all hands - i.e., you and the paddle and the
calabash baler. This craft also had a strong weather helm, owing to
a warp in the tree of which it had been made. I learnt all these
things one afternoon, paddling round the sandbank; and the next
afternoon, feeling confident in the merits of my vessel, I started
for the island, and I actually got there, and associated with the
natives, but feeling my arms were permanently worn out by paddling
against the current, I availed myself of the offer of a gentleman to
paddle me back in his canoe. He introduced himself as Samuel, and
volunteered the statement that he was "a very good man." We duly
settled ourselves in the canoe, he occupying the bow, I sitting in
the middle, and a Mrs. Samuel sitting in the stern. Mrs. Samuel was
a powerful, pretty lady, and a conscientious and continuous paddler.
Mr. S. was none of these things, but an ex-Bible reader, with an
amazing knowledge of English, which he spoke in a quaint, falsetto,
far-away sort of voice, and that man's besetting sin was curiosity.
"You be Christian, ma?" said he. I asked him if he had ever met a
white man who was not. "Yes, ma," says Samuel. I said "You must
have been associating with people whom you ought not to know."
Samuel fortunately not having a repartee for this, paddled on with
his long paddle for a few seconds. "Where be your husband, ma?" was
the next conversational bomb he hurled at me. "I no got one," I
answer. "No got," says Samuel, paralysed with astonishment; and as
Mrs. S., who did not know English, gave one of her vigorous drives
with her paddle at this moment, Samuel as near as possible got
jerked head first into the Ogowe, and we took on board about two
bucketfuls of water. He recovered himself, however and returned to
his charge. "No got one, ma?" "No," say I furiously. "Do you get
much rubber round here?" "I no be trade man," says Samuel, refusing
to fall into my trap for changing conversation. "Why you no got
one?" The remainder of the conversation is unreportable, but he
landed me at Andande all right, and got his dollar.
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