i i d S ‘° ld' l nd th? f0ll0W “P th« b“ k Of the river until I
f n t0ry', did I S
at the ti • * to take out a patent for this plan but
at the time in Esoon it looked nice enough.
c o u lT : ° f ,the more hi&hly cultured inhabitants here
RembwT , ade EngHsh a Iittle> and had been to the
They had S * 7 lntelllSent about the whole affair.
n e a r e s t 7 * Z u A ^ ^ — pied
somethinp- t f S K burnt by ^em, on account o f a
it T h e ? f ° CCUrred t0 a Catholic P^est who visited
in this sadT ff6’ 0UT j n° ne ° f them Personally mixed up
the priest t ? Sl C T Ve n° dGtails ° f What had befallen
bond o f • u Y the was a great
man ;°tbUni°n T ? US'man they inquired-«or thu“eWm aoSt h1e ra wwihfeit eP mSafne?” S Ip cSiviBlly
said them Move men were my tribe, and they ought to have
known it by he look of me. They discussed my points of re
become under these soothing influences, that I actually took
S S i H S V S * ! ^ q“ ''te ° “ ‘ ° f * habit o f doing
oil I , , I wanted to have them rubbed with palm
h \ i i \ my surPrise> tb a t there was no palm oil to
be had the tree being absent, or scarce in this region, so I had
o content myself with having them rubbed with a piece of
ammal fat instead. I chaperoned my men, while among the
ladies of Esoon— a forward set of minxes— with the vigifance
of a dragon ; and decreed, like the Mikado of japan, “ that who!
soever leered or winked, unless connubially linked ¡SSI
forthwith be beheaded,” have their pay chopped, I mean - and
as they were beginning to smell their pay, they were careful
and we got through Esoon without one of my men going into
’ 7 " ° ,mean performance when , you remember that every
h T 11 a past~ to Put ifc mildIy- Fika remained behind
them ° ? erS Pr° miSlng t0 bring back his pay bundle with
em on their return journey home. I think Fika heard
rumours in Esoon of some gentlemen he. had met before
and was not keen to meet again, being just then at N’dorko,
so I parted with him and Esoon, with suitable dashes, in
peace.
Esoon is not situated like the other towns, with a swamp
and the forest close round i t ; but it is built on the side of a
fairly cleared ravine among its plantain groves. When you
are on the southern side of the ravine, you can see Esoon
looking as if it were hung' on the hillside before you. You
then go through a plantation down into the little river, and up
into the town—one long, broad, clean-kept street. Leaving
Esoon you go on up the hill through another plantation to
the summit. . Immediately after leaving the town we struck
westwards ; and when we got to the top of the next hill we had
a view that showed us we were dealing with another type of
country. The hills to the westward are lower, and the valleys
between them broader and less heavily forested, or rather I
should say forested with smaller sorts of timber. All our paths
took us during the early part of the day up and down hills,
through swamps and little rivers, all flowing Rembwewards.
About the middle of the afternoon, when we had got up to the
top of a high hill, after having had a terrible time on a timber
fall of the first magnitude, into which four of us had fallen, I
of course for one, I saw a sight that made my heart stand still.
Stretching away to the west and north, winding in and out
among the feet of the now isolated mound-like mountains, was
that never to be mistaken black-green forest swamp of mangrove
; doubtless the fringe of the River Rembwe, which evidently
comes much further inland than the mangrove belt on
the Ogowe. This is reasonable and as it should be, though it
surprised me at the time; for the great arm of the sea which
is called the Gaboon is really a fjord, just like Bonny and
Opobo rivers, with several rivers falling into it at its head,
and this fjord brings the sea water further inland. In addition
to this the two rivers, the ’Como (NMmi) and Rembwe
that fall into this Gaboon, with several smaller rivers, both
bring down an inferior quantity of fresh water, and that at
nothing like the tearing, tide-beating back pace of the Ogowe.
As my brother would say, “ It’s perfectly simple if you think