Mdlle. Tinne, in 1863, Schweinfurth, in 1869, and Baker, in 1870, had already been stopped by this vegetable barrier, and the expedition of 1873 met with similar difficulties. At length the flotilla was utterly unable to move ahead, in spite of a favourable wind and the power of the huge sails.
Then the escort, the fifty bearers, and the adult negroes, who had been rescued by the Egyptian steamer, had to leave the boats, plunge waist-high in the marsh, lay hold of long ropes, and drag each vessel along by sheer force, one after the other. MM. de Morin, Périères, and Delange were anxious to lend a band, but, like Louis XIV., whose grandeur kept him on shore, they were confined to their vessel by the fear of losing caste in the eyes of the negroes, who, looking down upon manual labour, hold in slight esteem any white man who is imprudent enough to put himself on a par with them and share their work.
The trio were, nevertheless, obliged to join them, not to help, but to rescue them. These marshes, or floating islets, and all this luxuriant vegetation, serve as haunts, or cover, for herds of hippopotami and countless crocodiles. As a rule, the shouting and singing of the blacks, and the encouraging voices of those on board the boats, drive away all these creatures, which could be seen hurrying off towards the dense thickets, where their instinct told them they would be safe. But it occasionally happened that one of them, sound asleep on his bed of roses, would suddenly emerge from the middle of a brake, and show signs of attacking the strangers who were venturesome enough to intrude on his domain. Then one of the three Parisians, or, sometimes, all three together, roused by the shouts of the terrified blacks, would leave their vessel, and advance against the common enemy. The struggle was never very prolonged, for the crocodiles, though their ferocity is very great, invariably take to flight when attacked in earnest.
Though these incidents of the voyage, the sudden disembarkation and hurried chase, made the time pass quickly enough for most of the travellers, the trusty Joseph did not appear to appreciate them. His master, in order to give him something to do and prevent his growing so fat as to present later on a toothsome morsel for some cannibal, had decided that he should take part in all the excursions, to carry the spare rifles and ammunition.
Having thus taken the field, Joseph found himself compelled to wade through the marshes, struggle against the too importunate rushes, and advance against the crocodiles, and with a very bad grace he submitted, much to the amusement of Miss Beatrice Poles. The unfortunate man, nevertheless, really deserved commiseration. His white skin and soft flesh excited the curiosity and the appetite, not only of the crocodiles (which would not have been very dangerous, seeing that M. de Morin was at hand to defend his servant), but of the leeches, green flies, and tiger mosquitoes which abound in the districts watered by the Bahr-el-Grazal. The leeches were the principal offenders, audaciously making their war inside his leggings and inflicting many a bleeding wound. The poor fellow began to find out that he was paying rather a high price in advance for his lovely slave girls and elephants' tusks.
Whilst Joseph groaned and removed from his calves some obstinate leech which, never having tasted so succulent a dish, persisted in its endeavours to continue its repast, Madame de Guéran, Miss Poles, and their three companions, their work over for the day, reclined on board their boat, dragged onward by three hundred arms, and gazed at the surrounding scenery.
It is impossible to give any adequate idea of these strange regions, and it is difficult to realize that you are sailing in a river or on board ship. You are induced to think that you are on terra firma, in a vast plain watered by rivulets, and interspersed with pools and insignificant lakes. The sun finds a mirror in all these waters and lends additional splendour to massive stems, to flowers of every hue, to plants of every kind, revelling in a perpetual bath, to nenuphars red, white and blue, and to magnificent thickets of the papyrus, which raise their crowns twenty feet above the surrounding flood.
Round these stems, large as sugar canes, were fastened at nightfall the ropes which secured the flotilla. The darkness prevented any further attempt to carve out a passage along the narrow channel, and it would have been simply inhuman to leave the crowd of haulers in the midst of a dense vegetation when at each step they ran the risk of being lost to view.
CHAPTER VI.
At sunrise MM. Périères and de Morin gave the order to move on, but the escort, bearers, and slaves all remained motionless. They were seated on deck, huddled together, inert, and deaf to all commands.