Countless in diversity as were the trees and shrubs, the Anonaceæ, by mere reason of their numbers, must take a very prominent place in the catalogue. A family of plants is this of which, so long as the flora of tropical Africa was unexplored, it was presumed that America was the chief, if not the exclusive habitat. But since our knowledge has been enlarged, and especially since my own investigations in the Niam-niam lands, it has become clear almost beyond a question that Africa is at least as prodigal in the Anonaceæ that it yields as all the tropical districts of America.
Again for two hours we made a pause. The Nubians enjoyed a bright cool bath, the long column of bearers still toiling onwards with their loads. The opportunity to myself was as acceptable as ever, and I continued to secure a new abundance of botanical treasure. By way of variety, intelligence was brought us that a gun had gone off through negligence, and that the ball had rent a hole in the apron of one of the soldiers. Of course there was a great outcry and no end of gesticulating. The culprit took with the most passive resignation the lashing that was assigned him, and then all was forgotten, and something fresh had to be awaited to stir up a new excitement. The people are fatalists of the purest water, and no amount of experience can make them prudent.
Farther on, a march through a flat and open steppe led us after a few miles to a deep glen so thick with wood that it occupied us at least half an hour in crossing. Its bottom was a wide marshy streak over which there was no movement of the water, that seemed to be entirely stagnant. A new type of vegetation revealed itself, one never observed in the Nile lands by any previous traveller. This consisted of the thickets of Pandanus, which were to my mind an evidence of our having entered upon a new river-district altogether, the plant being an undoubted representative of the flora of the western coast.
And now we had to make our first experience of the various artifices by which the transit over these marshes has to be accomplished; not only would it be impossible for a carriage of any description or for any one on horseback to go over, but even when the baggage was conveyed by hand there was the serious risk of anyone seeing all that he most cared for, his clothes and his journals, tumbling from the bearers’ heads and sinking in the filthy slime. Mouldering trunks of trees there might be, but to place the foot upon these was to find them roll like a wave in the waters; others would be too smooth and slippery to allow a step to be trusted to their treacherous support; and then the deep continual holes would either be filled by water or covered with a floating vegetation which betrayed the unwary footsteps into trouble, so that there was no alternative for the bearers but to jump from mound to mound and keep their balance as best they might: to no purpose would they try to grasp at some support; the prickly leaves of the Pandanus, notched and jagged on the edges as a saw, made them glad to withdraw their tortured hand.
CROSSING THE MARSHES.
For miles far away the deserts re-echoed back the shouts of the bearers as they splashed through the waters; and the air around reverberated with the outcry, with the mingled laughing and swearing of the Nubians, and with the fluster of the women slaves as they jostled each other in carrying their dishes, gourd-flasks, and calabashes, through the prickly hedges. Every now and then would arise a general shriek, half in merriment, half in fright, from a hundred lungs, betokening that some unlucky slave had plumped down into a muddy hole, and that all her cooking utensils had come tumbling after. I could not help being on continual tenterhooks as to the fate which would befal my own baggage, particularly my herbarium, which although it was packed up most cautiously in india-rubber, yet required to be handled very gently. My Bongo bearers, however, were picked men, and did their work well. They waded on and never once had any misadventure, so that it resulted that everything, without exception, that I had gathered in these remote districts of Central Africa, was spared alike from loss or damage.
Dressing and undressing on these occasions was tiresome enough, but it was not the whole of the inconvenience. When the task of getting across had been accomplished, there still remained the business of purification; and no easy matter was it to get free from the black mud and slime that adhered tenaciously to the skin. It almost seemed as if Africa herself had been roused to spitefulness, and was exhibiting her wrath against the intruder who presumed to meddle with her secrets. With a malicious glee she appeared to be exulting that she was able to render the white man, at least for the time, as black as any of her own children; nor was she content till she had sent a plague of mud-leeches to add to his discomfort. Naked and shivering she let him stand even in the mist and rain of a chilly dawn; and no help for him till some friendly hand should guide him to a pool where the water still was undefiled, and he could get a wash. And then what a scraping! How ruefully too would his eye fall upon the ugly blood-suckers which clung about his legs! To make these relax their hold, recourse must be had to the powder-flask; and, after all, the clothes would be saturated with the blood that had been shed in vain. As for the things that had been splashed and wetted in the turmoil of the passage, they were laid out either upon a cluster of trampled fern-leaves or upon any little spot that seemed to give them a chance of drying.
The sun was already declining, and we had still three of these bogs to pass over, each with its running stream that would delay us for half an hour or more. Of these three, the second was the largest, and was known by the name of Mbangoh. Notwithstanding the vexation and harassment, to which I was unaccustomed, I found many an opportunity of gathering shrubs and plants of interest from the promiscuous vegetation amidst which we made our way.
The shades of night had gathered, when, after passing the last of the rivulets, we arrived at some farms in a cultivated spot. There was indication of rain, and a great deal of commotion ensued in taking precaution against it; luckily, however, we escaped with only a few heavy drops, and having been relieved from anxiety by a general clearing of the weather, we enjoyed the good night’s rest which our hard day’s toil had earned.
In order that we might arrive at Wando’s residence in good time on the following day, we made our start punctually at sunrise. After we had marched for half a league over open steppe, and had effected our passage over the Dyagbe, the signal was sounded for the morning halt.