The sandbanks were showing their yellow heads in all directions when
I came down from Talagouga, and just opposite Andande there was
sticking up out of the water a great, graceful, palm frond.
It had
been stuck into the head of the pet sandbank, and every day was
visited by the boys and girls in canoes to see how much longer they
would have to wait for the sandbank's appearance. A few days after
my return it showed, and in two days more there it was, acres and
acres of it, looking like a great, golden carpet spread on the
surface of the centre of the clear water - clear here, down this side
of Lembarene Island, because the river runs fairly quietly, and has
time to deposit its mud. Dark brown the Ogowe flies past the other
side of the island, the main current being deflected that way by a
bend, just below the entrance of the Nguni.
There was great rejoicing. Canoe-load after canoe-load of boys and
girls went to the sandbank, some doing a little fishing round its
rim, others bringing the washing there, all skylarking and singing.
Few prettier sights have I ever seen than those on that sandbank -
the merry brown forms dancing or lying stretched on it: the gaudy-
coloured patchwork quilts and chintz mosquito-bars that have been
washed, spread out drying, looking from Kangwe on the hill above,
like beds of bright flowers. By night when it was moonlight there
would be bands of dancers on it with bush-light torches, gyrating,
intermingling and separating till you could think you were looking
at a dance of stars.
They commenced affairs very early on that sandbank, and they kept
them up very late; and all the time there came from it a soft murmur
of laughter and song. Ah me! if the aim of life were happiness and
pleasure, Africa should send us missionaries instead of our sending
them to her - but, fortunately for the work of the world, happiness
is not. One thing I remember which struck me very much regarding
the sandbank, and this was that Mme. Jacot found such pleasure in
taking her work on to the verandah, where she could see it. I knew
she did not care for the songs and the dancing. One day she said to
me, "It is such a relief." "A relief?" I said. "Yes, do you not
see that until it shows there is nothing but forest, forest, forest,
and that still stretch of river? That bank is the only piece of
clear ground I see in the year, and that only lasts a few weeks
until the wet season comes, and then it goes, and there is nothing
but forest, forest, forest, for another year. It is two years now
since I came to this place; it may be I know not how many more
before we go home again." I grieve to say, for my poor friend's
sake, that her life at Kangwe was nearly at its end.
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