This Affair Being Settled
I Start Off, Like An Old Hen With A Brood Of Chickens To Provide
For, To Get Chop For My Men, And Go First To Hatton And Cookson's
Factory.
I find its white Agent is down river after stores, and
John Holt's Agent says he has got no
Beef nor fish, and is precious
short of provisions for himself; so I go back to Dumas', where I
find a most amiable French gentleman, who says he will let me have
as much fish or beef as I want, and to this supply he adds some
delightful bread biscuits. M'bo and the crew beam with
satisfaction; mine is clouded by finding, when they have carried off
the booty to the canoe, that the Frenchman will not let me pay for
it. Therefore taking the opportunity of his back being turned for a
few minutes, I buy and pay for, across the store counter, some trade
things, knives, cloth, etc. Then I say goodbye to the Agent.
"Adieu, Mademoiselle," says he in a for-ever tone of voice. Indeed
I am sure I have caught from these kind people a very pretty and
becoming mournful manner, and there's not another white station for
500 miles where I can show it off. Away we go, still damp from the
rain we have come through, but drying nicely with the day, and
cheerful about the chop.
The Ogowe is broad at Njole and its banks not mountainous, as at
Talagouga; but as we go on it soon narrows, the current runs more
rapidly than ever, and we are soon again surrounded by the mountain
range. Great masses of black rock show among the trees on the
hillsides, and under the fringe of fallen trees that hang from the
steep banks. Two hours after leaving Njole we are facing our first
rapid. Great gray-black masses of smoothed rock rise up out of the
whirling water in all directions. These rocks have a peculiar
appearance which puzzle me at the time, but in subsequently getting
used to it I accepted it quietly and admired. When the sun shines
on them they have a soft light blue haze round them, like a halo.
The effect produced by this, with the forested hillsides and the
little beaches of glistening white sand was one of the most perfect
things I have ever seen.
We kept along close to the right-hand bank, dodging out of the way
of the swiftest current as much as possible. Ever and again we were
unable to force our way round projecting parts of the bank, so we
then got up just as far as we could to the point in question,
yelling and shouting at the tops of our voices. M'bo said "Jump for
bank, sar," and I "up and jumped," followed by half the crew. Such
banks! sheets, and walls, and rubbish heaps of rock, mixed up with
trees fallen and standing. One appalling corner I shall not forget,
for I had to jump at a rock wall, and hang on to it in a manner more
befitting an insect than an insect-hunter, and then scramble up it
into a close-set forest, heavily burdened with boulders of all
sizes.
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