I Am
Told She Was A Fine Steamer In Her Day, But Those Who Had Charge Of
Her Did Not
Make allowances for the very rapid rotting action of the
Ogowe water, so her hull rusted through before her engines
Were a
quarter worn out; and there was nothing to be done with her then,
but put a lot of concrete in, and make her a depot, in which state
of life she is very useful, for during the height of the dry season,
the Move cannot get through the creek to supply the firm's Fernan
Vaz factories.
Subsequently I heard much of the Fallaba, which seems to have been a
celebrated, or rather notorious, vessel. Every one declared her
engines to have been of immense power, but this I believe to have
been a mere local superstition; because in the same breath, the man
who referred to them, as if it would have been quite unnecessary for
new engines to have been made for H.M.S. Victorious if those
Fallaba engines could have been sent to Chatham dockyard, would
mention that "you could not get any pace up on her"; and all who
knew her sadly owned "she wouldn't steer," so naturally she spent
the greater part of her time on the Ogowe on a sand-bank, or in the
bush. All West African steamers have a mania for bush, and the
delusion that they are required to climb trees. The Fallaba had the
complaint severely, because of her defective steering powers, and
the temptation the magnificent forest, and the rapid currents, and
the sharp turns of the creek district, offered her; she failed, of
course - they all fail - but it is not for want of practice. I have
seen many West Coast vessels up trees, but never more than fifteen
feet or so.
The trade of this lower part of the Ogowe, from the mouth to
Lembarene, a matter of 130 miles, is almost nil. Above Lembarene,
you are in touch with the rubber and ivory trade.
This Fallaba creek is noted for mosquitoes, and the black passengers
made great and showy preparations in the evening time to receive
their onslaught, by tying up their strong chintz mosquito bars to
the stanchions and the cook-house. Their arrangements being
constantly interrupted by the white engineer making alarums and
excursions amongst them; because when too many of them get on one
side the Move takes a list and burns her boilers. Conversation and
atmosphere are full of mosquitoes. The decision of widely
experienced sufferers amongst us is, that next to the lower Ogowe,
New Orleans is the worst place for them in this world.
The day closed with a magnificent dramatic beauty. Dead ahead of
us, up through a bank of dun-coloured mist rose the moon, a great
orb of crimson, spreading down the oil-like, still river, a streak
of blood-red reflection. Right astern, the sun sank down into the
mist, a vaster orb of crimson, and when he had gone out of view,
sent up flushes of amethyst, gold, carmine and serpent-green, before
he left the moon in undisputed possession of the black purple sky.
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