that to the.water level but safely elevated the damaged end in
the air. Of course you had to stop in your end firmly, because
if you went forward the hole went down into the water, and
the water went into the hole, and forthwith you foundered
with all hands— i.e., you and the paddle and the calabash baler.
This craft also had a strong weather helm, owing to a warp in
the tree of which it had been made. I learnt all these things one
afternoon, paddling round the sandbank ; and the next afternoon,
feeling confident in the merits- of my vessel, I started
for the island, and I actually got there, and associated with
the natives, but feeling my arms were permanently worn out
by paddling against the current, I availed myself of the
offer of a gentleman to paddle me back in his canoe. He
introduced himself as Samuel, and volunteered the statement
that he was “ a very good man.” We duly settled
ourselves in the canoe, he occupying the bow, I sitting in
the middle, and a Mrs. Samuel sitting in the stern. Mrs..
Samuel was a powerful, pretty lady, and a conscientious and
continuous paddler. Mr. S. was none of these things, but an
ex-Bible reader, with an amazing knowledge of English,
which he spoke in a quaint, falsetto, far-away sort of voice,
and that man’s besetting sin was curiosity. “ You be Christian,
ma ? ” said he. I asked him if he had ever met a white man who
was not ? “ Yes, ma,” says Samuel. I said “ You must have
been associating with people whom you ought not to know.”
Samuel fortunately not having a repartee for this, paddled on
with his long paddle for a few seconds. “ Where b e . your
husband, m a ? ” was the next conversational bomb he hurled
at me. “ I no got one,” I answer. “ No got,” says Samuel,
paralysed with astonishment; and as Mrs. S., who did not
know English, gave one of her vigorous drives with her
paddle at this moment, Samuel as near as possible got
jerked head first into the Ogowe, and we took on board
about two bucketfuls of water. He recovered himself,
however and returned to his charge. “ No got one, ma?”
“ No,” say I furiously. “ Do you get-, much rubber round
here ? ” “ I no be trade man,” says Samuel, refusing to
fall into my trap for changing conversation. “ Why you
no got on e?” The remainder of the conversation is unreportable,
but he landed me at Andande all right, and got his
dollar.
The next voyage I made, which was on the next day, I
decided to go by myself to the factory, which is on the
other side of the island, and did so. I got some goods to
buy fish with, and heard from Mr. Cockshut that the poor
boy-agent at Osoamokita, had committed suicide. It was a
grievous thing. He was, as I have said, a bright, intelligent
young Frenchman ; but living in the isolation, surrounded by
savage, tiresome tribes, the strain of his responsibility had been
too much for him. He had had a good deal of fever, and the
very kindly head agent for Woermann’s had sent Dr. Pdlessier
to see if he had not better be invalided home ; but he told the
Doctor he was much better, and as he had no one at home to go
to he begged him not to send him, and the Doctor, to his subsequent
regret, gave in. No one knows, who has not been
to visit Africa, how terrible is the life of a white man in one of
these out-of-the-way factories, with no white society, and with
nothing to look at, day out and day in, but the one set of
objects— the forest, the river, and the beach, which in a place
like Osoamokita you cannot leave for months at a time, and
of which you soon know every plank and stone. I felt utterly
wretched as I started home again to come up to the end of
the island, and go round it and down to Andande ; and paddled
on for some little time, before I noticed that I was making
absolutely no progress. I redoubled my exertions, and crept
slowly up to some rocks projecting above the water ; but pass
them I could not, as the main current of the Ogowe flew in
hollow swirls round them against my canoe. Several passing
canoefuls of natives gave me good advice in Igalwa ; but facts
were facts, and the Ogowe was too strong for me. After about
twenty minutes an old Fan gentleman came down river in a
canoe and gave me good advice in Fan, and I got him to take
me in tow— that is to say, he got into my canoe and I held on to
his and we went back down river. I then saw his intention was
to take me across to that disreputable village, half Fan, half
Bakele, which is situated on the main bank of the river opposite
the island; this I disapproved of, because I had heard
that some Senegal soldiers who had gone over there, had been