"There's Nothing Like Dash And
Courage, My Dear Duke," I Said, "Even If One Display It By Deputy,
So This
Plan does you great credit; but as my knowledge of this
charming language of yours is but small, I fear
I might create a
wrong impression in that town, and it might think I had kindly
brought them a present of eight edible heathens - you and the
remainder of my followers, you understand." My men saw this was a
real danger, and this was the only way I saw of excusing myself. It
is at such a moment as this that the Giant's robe gets, so to speak,
between your legs and threatens to trip you up. Going up a
forbidden road, and exposing yourself as a pot shot to ambushed
natives would be jam and fritters to Mr. MacTaggart, for example;
but I am not up to that form yet. So I determined to leave that
road severely alone, and circumnavigate the next town by a road that
leaves Esoon going W.N.W., which struck the Rembwe by N'dorko, I was
told, and then follow up the bank of the river until I picked up the
sub-factory. Subsequent experience did not make one feel inclined
to take out a patent for this plan, but at the time in Esoon it
looked nice enough.
Some few of the more highly cultured inhabitants here could speak
trade English a little, and had been to the Rembwe, and were quite
intelligent about the whole affair. They had seen white men. A
village they formerly occupied nearer the Rembwe had been burnt by
them, on account of a something that had occurred to a Catholic
priest who visited it. They were, of course, none of them
personally mixed up in this sad affair, so could give no details of
what had befallen the priest. They knew also "the Move," which was
a great bond of union between us. "Was I a wife of them Move white
man," they inquired - "or them other white man?" I civilly said them
Move men were my tribe, and they ought to have known it by the look
of me. They discussed my points of resemblance to "the Move white
man," and I am ashamed to say I could not forbear from smiling, as I
distinctly recognised my friends from the very racy description of
their personal appearance and tricks of manner given by a lively
Esoonian belle who had certainly met them. So content and happy did
I become under these soothing influences, that I actually took off
my boots, a thing I had quite got out of the habit of doing, and had
them dried. I wanted to have them rubbed with palm oil, but I
found, to my surprise, that there was no palm oil to be had, the
tree being absent, or scarce in this region, so I had to content
myself with having them rubbed with a piece of animal fat instead.
I chaperoned my men, while among the ladies of Esoon - a forward set
of minxes - with the vigilance of a dragon; and decreed, like the
Mikado of Japan, "that whosoever leered or winked, unless
connubially linked, should forthwith be beheaded," have their pay
chopped, I mean; and as they were beginning to smell their pay, they
were careful; and we got through Esoon without one of them going
into jail; no mean performance when you remember that every man had
a past - to put it mildly.
Esoon is not situated like the other towns, with a swamp and the
forest close round it; but it is built on the side of a fairly
cleared ravine among its plantain groves. When you are on the
southern side of the ravine, you can see Esoon looking as if it were
hung on the hillside before you. You then go through a plantation
down into the little river, and up into the town - one long, broad,
clean-kept street. Leaving Esoon you go on up the hill through
another plantation to the summit. Immediately after leaving the
town we struck westwards; and when we got to the top of the next
hill we had a view that showed us we were dealing with another type
of country. The hills to the westward are lower, and the valleys
between them broader and less heavily forested, or rather I should
say forested with smaller sorts of timber. All our paths took us
during the early part of the day up and down hills, through swamps
and little rivers, all flowing Rembwe-wards. About the middle of
the afternoon, when we had got up to the top of a high hill, after
having had a terrible time on a timber fall of the first magnitude,
into which four of us had fallen, I of course for one, I saw a sight
that made my heart stand still. Stretching away to the west and
north, winding in and out among the feet of the now isolated mound-
like mountains, was that never to be mistaken black-green forest
swamp of mangrove; doubtless the fringe of the River Rembwe, which
evidently comes much further inland than the mangrove belt on the
Ogowe. This is reasonable and as it should be, though it surprised
me at the time; for the great arm of the sea which is called the
Gaboon is really a fjord, just like Bonny and Opobo rivers, with
several rivers falling into it at its head, and this fjord brings
the sea water further inland. In addition to this the two rivers,
the 'Como (Nkama) and Rembwe that fall into this Gaboon, with
several smaller rivers, both bring down an inferior quantity of
fresh water, and that at nothing like the tearing, tide-beating back
pace of the Ogowe. As my brother would say, "It's perfectly simple
if you think about it;" but thinking is not my strong point. Anyhow
I was glad to see the mangrove-belt; all the gladder because I did
not then know how far it was inland from the sea, and also because I
was fool enough to think that a long line I could see, running E.
and W. to the north of where I stood, was the line of the Rembwe
river; which it was not, as we soon found out.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 84 of 190
Words from 84899 to 85961
of 194943
