was making him say things; it was either those immovable
rocks, which threw him back in foam, whirling wildly, or it
was that fringe of gaunt skeleton trees hanging from the bank
playing a “ pull devil, pull baker ” contest that made him hiss
with vexation. But this was an elemental roar. I said to
M’bo : “ That’s a thunderstorm away among the mountains.
“ No, sir,” says he, “ that’s the Alemba.”
We paddled on towards it, hugging the right-hand
bank again to avoid the mid-river rocks. For a brief space
the mountain wall ceased, and a lovely scene opened
before u s ; we seemed to be looking into the heart of
the chain of the Sierra del Cristal, the abruptly shaped
mountains encircling a narrow plain or valley before us, each
one of them steep in slope, every one of them forest-clad;
one, whose name I know not unless it be what is sometimes
put down as Mt. Okana on the French maps, had a conical shape
which contrasted beautifully with the more irregular curves of
its companions. The colour down this gap was superb, and
very Japanese in the evening glow. The more distant peaks
were soft gray-blues and purple, those nearer, indigo and black.
We soon passed this lovely scene and entered the walled-in
channel, creeping up what seemed an interminable hill of
black water, then through some whirlpools and a rocky channel
to the sand and rock shore of our desired island Kondo Kondo,
alone whose northern side tore in thunder o the Alemba. We
made our canoe fast in a little cove among the rocks, and landed,
pretty stiff and tired and considerably damp. This island,
when we were on it, must have been about half a mile or so long,
but during the long wet season a good deal of it is covered,
and only the higher parts— great heaps of stone, among which
grows a long branched willow-like shrub— are above or nearly
above water. The Adooma from Kembe Island especially
drew my attention to this shrub, telling me his people who
worked the rapids always regarded it with an affectionate
veneration ; for he said it was the only thing that helped a man
when his canoe got thrown over in the dreaded Alemba, for
its long tough branches swimming in, or close to, the water
are veritable life lines, and his best chance ; a chance which must
have failed some poor fellow, whose knife and leopard-skin belt
we found wedged in among the rocks on Kondo Kondo. The
main part of the island is sand, with slabs and tables of
polished rock sticking up through i t ; and in between the rocks
grew in thousands most beautiful lilies, their white flowers
having a very strong scent of vanilla and their bright light-green
leaves looking very lovely on the glistening pale sand among
the black-gray rock. How they stand the long submersion
they must undergo I do not know; the natives tell me they
begin to spring up as soon as ever the water falls and
leaves the island exposed ; that they very soon grow up and
flower, and keep on flowering until the Ogowe comes down
again and rides roughshod over Kondo Kondo for months.
While the men were making their fire I went across the island
to see the great Alemba rapid, of which I had heard so much,
that lay between it and the north bank. Nobler pens than mine
must sing its glory and its grandeur. Its face was like nothing
I have seen before. Its voice was like nothing I have heard.
Those other rapids are not to be compared to i t ; they are wild,
headstrong, and malignant enough, but the Alemba is not as
they. It does not struggle, and writhe, and brawl among the
rocks, but comes in a majestic springing dance, a stretch of
waltzing foam, triumphant.
The beauty of the night on Kondo Kondo was superb;
the sun went down and the afterglow flashed across the
sky in crimson, purple, and gold, leaving it a deep violet-
purple, with the great stars hanging in it like moons, until the
moon herself arose, lighting the sky long before she sent
her beams down on us in this valley. As she rose,
the mountains hiding her face grew harder and harder in
outline, and deeper and deeper black, while those opposite
were just enough illumined to let one see the wefts and
floating veils of blue-white mist upon them, and when at last,
and for a short time only, she shone full down on the savage
foam of the Alemba, she turned it into a soft silver mist.
Around, on all sides flickered the fire-flies, who had come to
see if our fire was not a big relation of their own, and they were
the sole representatives, with ourselves, of animal life. When the
moon had gone, the sky, still lit by the stars, seeming indeed
to be in itself lambent, was very lovely, but it shared none of