Some Bird
Was Making A Long, Low Boom-Booming Sound Away On The Forest Shore.
I Paddled Leisurely Across The
Lake to the shore on the right, and
seeing crawling on the ground some large glow-worms, drove the canoe
On to the bank among some hippo grass, and got out to get them.
While engaged on this hunt I felt the earth quiver under my feet,
and heard a soft big soughing sound, and looking round saw I had
dropped in on a hippo banquet. I made out five of the immense
brutes round me, so I softly returned to the canoe and shoved off,
stealing along the bank, paddling under water, until I deemed it
safe to run out across the lake for my island. I reached the other
end of it to that on which the village is situated; and finding a
miniature rocky bay with a soft patch of sand and no hippo grass,
the incidents of the Fan hut suggested the advisability of a bath.
Moreover, there was no china collection in that hut, and it would be
a long time before I got another chance, so I go ashore again, and,
carefully investigating the neighbourhood to make certain there was
no human habitation near, I then indulged in a wash in peace.
Drying one's self on one's cummerbund is not pure joy, but it can be
done when you put your mind to it. While I was finishing my toilet
I saw a strange thing happen. Down through the forest on the lake
bank opposite came a violet ball the size of a small orange. When
it reached the sand beach it hovered along it to and fro close to
the ground. In a few minutes another ball of similarly coloured
light came towards it from behind one of the islets, and the two
waver to and fro over the beach, sometimes circling round each
other. I made off towards them in the canoe, thinking - as I still
do - they were some brand new kind of luminous insect. When I got on
to their beach one of them went off into the bushes and the other
away over the water. I followed in the canoe, for the water here is
very deep, and, when I almost thought I had got it, it went down
into the water and I could see it glowing as it sunk until it
vanished in the depths. I made my way back hastily, fearing my
absence with the canoe might give rise, if discovered, to trouble,
and by 3.30 I was back in the hut safe, but not so comfortable as I
had been on the lake. A little before five my men are stirring and
I get my tea. I do not state my escapade to them, but ask what
those lights were. "Akom," said the Fan, and pointing to the shore
of the lake where I had been during the night they said, "they came
there, it was an 'Aku'" - or devil bush. More than ever did I regret
not having secured one of those sort of two phenomena. What a joy a
real devil, appropriately put up in raw alcohol, would have been to
my scientific friends!
Wednesday, July 24th. - We get away about 5.30, the Fans coming in a
separate canoe. We call at the next island to M'fetta to buy some
more aguma. The inhabitants are very much interested in my
appearance, running along the stony beach as we paddle away, and
standing at the end of it until we are out of sight among the many
islands at the N.E. end of Lake Ncovi. The scenery is savage; there
are no terrific cliffs nor towering mountains to make it what one
usually calls wild or romantic, but there is a distinction about it
which is all its own. This N.E. end has beautiful sand beaches on
the southern side, in front of the forested bank, lying in smooth
ribbons along the level shore, and in scollops round the
promontories where the hills come down into the lake. The forest on
these hills, or mountains - for they are part of the Sierra del
Cristal - is very dark in colour, and the undergrowth seems scant.
We presently come to a narrow but deep channel into the lake coming
from the eastward, which we go up, winding our course with it into a
valley between the hills. After going up it a little way we find it
completely fenced across with stout stakes, a space being left open
in the middle, broader than the spaces between the other stakes; and
over this is poised a spear with a bush rope attached, and weighted
at the top of the haft with a great lump of rock. The whole affair
is kept in position by a bush rope so arranged just under the level
of the water that anything passing through the opening would bring
the spear down. This was a trap for hippo or manatee (Ngany
'imanga), and similar in structure to those one sees set in the
hippo grass near villages and plantations, which serve the double
purpose of defending the vegetable supply, and adding to the meat
supply of the inhabitants. We squeeze through between the stakes so
as not to let the trap off, and find our little river leads us into
another lake, much smaller than Ncovi. It is studded with islands
of fantastic shapes, all wooded with high trees of an equal level,
and with little or no undergrowth among them, so their pale gray
stems look like clusters of columns supporting a dark green ceiling.
The forest comes down steep hill sides to the water edge in all
directions; and a dark gloomy-looking herb grows up out of black
slime and water, in a bank or ribbon in front of it. There is
another channel out of this lake, still to the N.E. The Fans say
they think it goes into the big lake far far away, i.e., Lake
Ayzingo.
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