Your Best Way Of Getting Off Is To Push On In The Direction Of
The Current, Carefully Preparing For The Shock Of Suddenly Coming
Off The Cliff End.
We left the landing place rocks of Kembe Island about 8, and no
sooner had we got afloat, than, in the twinkling of an eye, we were
swept, broadside on, right across the river to the north bank, and
then engaged in a heavy fight with a severe rapid.
After passing
this, the river is fairly uninterrupted by rock for a while, and is
silent and swift. When you are ascending such a piece the effect is
strange; you see the water flying by the side of your canoe, as you
vigorously drive your paddle into it with short rapid strokes, and
you forthwith fancy you are travelling at the rate of a North-
Western express; but you just raise your eyes, my friend, and look
at that bank, which is standing very nearly still, and you will
realise that you and your canoe are standing very nearly still too;
and that all your exertions are only enabling you to creep on at the
pace of a crushed snail, and that it's the water that is going the
pace. It's a most quaint and unpleasant disillusionment.
Above the stretch of swift silent water we come to the Isangaladi
Islands, and the river here changes its course from N.N.W., S.S.E.
to north and south. A bad rapid, called by our ally from Kembe
Island "Unfanga," being surmounted, we seem to be in a mountain-
walled lake, and keeping along the left bank of this, we get on
famously for twenty whole restful minutes, which lulls us all into a
false sense of security, and my crew sing M'pongwe songs,
descriptive of how they go to their homes to see their wives, and
families, and friends, giving chaffing descriptions of their
friends' characteristics and of their failings, which cause bursts
of laughter from those among us who recognise the allusions, and how
they go to their boxes, and take out their clothes, and put them on-
-a long bragging inventory of these things is given by each man as a
solo, and then the chorus, taken heartily up by his companions,
signifies their admiration and astonishment at his wealth and
importance - and then they sing how, being dissatisfied with that
last dollar's worth of goods they got from "Holty's," they have
decided to take their next trade to Hatton and Cookson, or vice
versa; and then comes the chorus, applauding the wisdom of such a
decision, and extolling the excellence of Hatton and Cookson's goods
or Holty's. These M'pongwe and Igalwa boat songs are all very
pretty, and have very elaborate tunes in a minor key. I do not
believe there are any old words to them; I have tried hard to find
out about them, but I believe the tunes, which are of a limited
number and quite distinct from each other, are very old.
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