will find the great forest sweeping away in a bay-like curve
behind it against the dull gray sky, the splendid columns of
its cotton and red woods looking like a façade of some limitless
inchoate temple. Then again there is that stretch of
sword-grass, looking as if it grew firmly on to the bottom, so
steady does it stand ; but as the Mové goes by, her wash sets
it undulating in waves across its broad acres of extent, showing
it is only riding at anchor ; and you know after a grass
patch you will soon see a red dwarf clay cliff-, with a village
perched on its top, and the inhabitants thereof in their blue
and red cloths standing by to shout and wave to the Mové,
or legging it like lamp-lighters from the back streets and the
plantation to the river frontage, to be in time to do so, and
through all these changing phases there is always the strain of
the vast wild forest, and the swift, deep, silent river.
A t almost every village that we pass— and they are frequent
after the Fullabatr-— there is an ostentatious display of firewood
deposited either on the bank, or on piles driven into the mud
in front of it, mutely saying in their uncivilised way, “ Try
our noted chunks : best value for money ”— (that is to say,
tobacco, &c.), to the Mové or any other little steamer that may
happen to come along hungry for fuel.
Mr. Hudson is immersed in accounts all day. I stare at the
forest, Mr. Huyghens at the engines. The captain is on top of
the sun deck most of his time : but he and every one, save Mr.
Hudson and Mr. Huyghens, about every twenty minutes go
down into the afterhold. I f Mr. Hudson were not on board,
I d go down too, just to see what in the world they have got
down there. The Krumen on their return have pails of dirty
water, which Mr. Hudson, kindly fearing it will give me the
idea that the Mové is leaking badly, explains that it comes
out of something connected with the propeller conditioned by
the state of the packing. The captain, with his arms full of
tinned provisions. The engineer empty-handed but. looking
content. Rosa, Mr. Hudson’s devoted servant, with the boots
and boot-cleaning stuff. I wish to goodness I could go down ;
maybe I should find hairpins and ammonia there, both of which
I am bitterly in need of, particularly the; ammonia, after those
mosquitoes.
We stayed a few minutes this afternoon at Ashchyouka, where
there came off to us in a canoe an enterprising young Frenchman
who has planted and tended a coffee plantation in this
•out-of-the-way region, and which is now, I am glad to hear,
just coming into bearing. After leaving Ashchyouka, high land
showed to the N.E., and at 5.15, without evident cause to the
uninitiated, the Mové took to whistling like a liner. A few
minutes later a factory shows up on the hilly north bank,
which is Woermann’s ; then just beyond and behind
it we see the Government Post ; then Hatton and Cookson’s
factory, all in a line. Opposite Hatton and Cookson’s
there was a pretty little stern-wheel steamer nestling against
Ifthe steep clay bank of Lembarene Island when we come
I in sight, but she instantly swept out from it in a perfect
■curve, which lay behind her marked in frosted silver on the
water as she dropt'down river. I hear now she was the
■ ■ 1 1 the stern-wheeler which runs up and down the
J-Ogowè in connection with the Chargeurs Réunis Company
subsidised by the Government, and when the Move whistled’
she was just completing taking on 3,000 billets o f wood for
fuel She comes up from the Cape (Lopez) stoking half wood
■and half coal as far as Njole and back to Lembarene : from
Lembarene to the sea downwards she does on wood. In a
few minutes we have taken her berth close to the bank and
116 ?tP^t0 a i,ree- The white engineer yells to the black engi-
iieer ‘ Tom-Tom : Haul out some of them fire and open them
»drains one time,” and the stokers, with hooks, pull out the
glowing logs on to the iron deck in front of the furnace door
and throw water over them, and the Mové sends a cloud of o il’
r aden steam against the bank, coming perilously near scalding
some of her black admirers assembled there. I dare say she
felt vicious because they had been admiring the ÉclaireJr
After a few minutes, I am escorted on to the broad verandah
<>f Hatton and Cooksons factory, and I sit down under a
lamp prepared to contemplate, until dinner time the wild
beauty of the scene. This idea does not get carried out n
the twinkling of an eye I am stung all round the neck Ind
■ W I - a n y mosquitoes and s a n d fL in
F ry to Peimit of contemplation of any kind. Never