N’dorko was quite close, and that the plantations we saw
before us were its outermost ones, but spoke of a swamp, a
bad. swamp. We knew it, we said, in the foolishness of our
hearts thinking they meant the one we had just forded, and
leaving them resting, passed on our way ; half-a-mile further
on we were wiser and sadder, for then we stood on the rim of
one of the biggest swamps I have ever seen south of the Rivers.
It stretched away in all directions, a great sheet of filthy water,
out of which sprang gorgeous marsh plants, in islands, great
banks of screw pine, and coppices of wine palm, with their
lovely fronds reflected back by the still, mirror-like water, so
that the reflection was as vivid as the reality, and above all
remarkable was a plant,1 new and strange to me, whose pale-
green stem came up out of the water and then spread out in
a flattened surface, thin, and in a peculiarly graceful curve
This flattened surface had growing out from it leaves, the
size, shape and colour of lily of the valley leaves; until I saw
this thing I had held the wine palm to. be the queen of grace
in the vegetable kingdom, but this new beauty quite surpassed
her.
Our path went straight into this swamp over the black
rdcks forming its rim, in an imperative, no alternative, “ Come-
along-this-way” style. Singlet, who was leading, carrying a good
load of bottled fish and a gorilla specimen, went at it like a
man, and disappeared before the eyes of us close following
him, then and there down through the water. He came up,
thanks be, but his load is down there now, worse luck. Then
I said we must get the rubber carriers who were coming this
way to show us the ford ; and so we sat down on the bank a
tired, disconsolate, dilapidated-looking row, until they arrived.
When they came up they did not plunge in forthwith; but
leisurely set about making a most nerve-shaking set of preparations,
taking off their clothes, and forming them into
bundles, which, to my horror, they put on the tops of their
heads. The women carried the rubber on their backs still but
rubber is none the worse for being under water. The men
went in first, each holding his gun high above his head. They
skirted the bank before they struck out into the swamp, and
1 Specimen placed in Herbarium at Kew.
were followed by the women and by our party, and soon we
were all up to our chins..
We were two hours and a quarter passing that swamp. I
was one hour and three-quarters ; but I made good weather of
it, closely following the rubber-carriers, and only going in
right over head and all twice. Other members of my band
were less fortunate. One finding himself getting out of his
depth, got hold of a palm frond and pulled himself into deeper
water still, and had to roost among the palms until a special
expedition of the tallest men went and gathered him like a
flower. Another got himself much mixed up and scratched
because he thought to make a short cut through screw pines.
He did not know the screw pine’s little ways,1 and he had to
have a special relief expedition. One and all, we got
horribly infested with leeches, having a frill of them round our
necks like astrachan collars, and our hands covered with them,
when we came out. The depth of the swamp is- very uniform,
at its ford we went in up to our necks, and climbed up on to
the rocks on the hither side out of water equally deep.
Knowing you do not like my going into details on such
matters, I will confine my statement regarding our leeches, to
the fact that it was for the best that we had some trade salt
with us. It was most comic to see us salting each other ; but
in spite of the salt’s efficacious action I was quite faint
from loss of blood, and we all presented a ghastly sight as we
made our way on into N’dorko. O f course the bleeding did
not stop at once, and it attracted flies and— but I am going
into details, so I forbear.
We had to pass across the first bit of open country I had
seen for a long time—a real patch of grass on the top
of a low ridge, which is fringed with swamp on all sides save
the one we made our way to, the eastern. Shortly after
passing through another plantation, we saw brown huts, and
1 Pandanus candelabrum—a. marsh tree from 20 to 30 feet high growing
in dense thickets, the stout aerial roots coming down into the water
and forming with the true stems a network even more dense than that
of mangroves. Their leaves, which grow in clusters, are sword-shaped,
and from 4 to 6 feet in length with sharp spin'ey margins, and the whole
affair is exceedingly tough and scratchy.