CH A P T ER IX
THE RAPIDS OF THE OGOWfi
The Log of an Adooma canoe during a voyage undertaken to the rapids
of the River Ogowe, with some account of the divers disasters that
befell thereon.
I ESTABLISH myself on my portmanteau comfortably in the
canoe, my back is against the trade box, and behind that is
the usual mound of pillows, sleeping mats, and- mosquito-bars
of the Igalwa crew ; the whole surmounted by the French flag
flying from an indifferent stick.
M. and Mme. Forget provide me with everything I can
possibly require, and say, that the blood of half my crew
is half alcohol ; on the whole it is patent they don’t expect
to see me again, and I forgive them, because they don’t
seem cheerful over i t ; but still it is not reassuring—-
nothing is about this affair, and it’s going to rain. It does,
as we go up the river to Njole, where there is another risk
of the affair collapsing, by the French authorities declining
to allow me to proceed. On we paddled, M’bo the
head man standing in the bows of the canoe in front of me, to-
steer, then I, then the baggage, then the able-bodied seamen,
including the cook also standing and paddling; and at the
other extremity of the canoe— it grieves me to speak of it in
this unseamanlike way, but in these canoes both ends are
alike, and chance alone ordains which is bow and which is
stern— stands Pierre, the first officer, also steering ; the paddles
used are all of the long-handled, leaf-shaped Igalwa type.
We get up just past Talagouga Island and then tie up'
against the bank of M. Gazenget’s plantation, and make a
piratical raid on its bush for poles. A gang of his men FAN CHIEF AND FAMILY.