“Ay, ay,” answered Bates, “that will be it, no doubt.” He sprang on to the slide that Young had just vacated, took a long look at the land, and then, turning to the helmsman, demanded, “How’s her head?”
“East-south-east, sir,” answered the man for the second time.
With this information the master in his turn took an approximate bearing of the southernmost extremity of the range of hills, after which he stepped down on to the deck again and, going to the capstan, spread out his chart upon the head of it, calling me to help him keep the roll open. The lieutenant followed him, and stood watching as the master again manipulated his parallel ruler and dividers.
“Yes,” remarked Bates, after a few moments’ diligent study, “that’s just about where we are,” pointing to the mark that he had made upon the chart while in his own cabin. “And see,” he continued, glancing out through the nearest lee port, “we have reached the river water; look how brown and thick it is, more like a cup of the captain’s chocolate than good, wholesome salt water. We will try a cast of the lead, Mr Young, if you please, just to make sure; though if we are fair in the channel, as I think we are, we shall get no bottom as yet. Nor shall we make any headway until the wind freshens or the sea-breeze springs up, for we are already within the influence of the outflowing current, and at this season of the year—which is the rainy season—it runs very strongly a little further in.”
The lead was hove, but, as Bates had anticipated, no bottom was found; whereupon the master rolled up his chart again, gave orders that the ship was to be kept going as she was, and returned to his cabin, while the watch mustered their buckets and scrubbing-brushes and proceeded to wash decks and generally make the brig’s toilet for the day.
Our worthy master was right; we did not make a particle of headway until about nine o’clock, when the wind gradually hauled round aft and freshened to a piping breeze before which we boomed along in fine style until we came abreast of a low, narrow point on our port hand, protected from the destructive action of the Atlantic breakers by a shoal extending some three-quarters of a mile to seaward. Abreast of this point we hauled up to the northward and entered a sort of bay about half-a-mile wide, with the low point before-mentioned on our port hand, and a wide mud-bank to starboard, beyond which was an island of considerable extent, fringed with mangroves and covered with thick bush and lofty trees. On the low point on our port hand were two “factories,” or trading establishments, abreast of which were lying two brigs and a barque, one of the brigs flying British and the other Spanish colours, while the barque sported the Dutch ensign at her mizen-peak. We rounded-to just far enough outside these craft to give them a clear berth, and let go our anchor in four fathoms of water.
It was a queer spot that we now found ourselves in; queer to me at least, who was now entering upon my first experience of West African service. We were riding with our head to the north-west under the combined influence of wind and tide together, with the low point—named Banana Peninsula, so the master informed me, though why it should be so named I never could understand, for there was not a single banana-tree upon the whole peninsula, as I subsequently ascertained. Let me see, where was I? I have gone adrift among those non-existent banana-trees. Oh yes, I was going to attempt to make a word-sketch of the scene which surrounded us after we had let go our anchor and furled our canvas. The sea-breeze was piping strong from the westward, while the tide was ebbing down the creek from the northward, and under these combined influences the Barracouta was riding with her head about north-west. Banana Peninsula lay ahead of us, trending away along our larboard beam and slightly away from us to the southward for about half-a-mile, where it terminated in a sandy beach bordered by a broad patch of smooth water, athwart which marched an endless line of mimic breakers from the wall of flashing white surf that thundered upon the outer edge of the protecting shoal three-quarters of a mile to seaward. The point was pretty thickly covered with bush and trees, chiefly cocoa-nut and other palms—except in the immediate vicinity and in front of the two factories, where the soil had been cleared and a sort of rough wharf constructed by driving piles formed of the trunks of trees into the ground and wedging a few slabs of sawn timber in behind them. The point, for a distance of perhaps a mile from its southern extremity, was very narrow—not more than from one hundred and fifty to two hundred yards wide—but beyond that it widened out considerably until it merged in the mainland. On the opposite side of the creek, on our starboard quarter and astern of us, was what I at first took to be a single island, but which I subsequently found to be a group of about a dozen islands, of which the smallest may have been half-a-mile long by about a third of a mile broad, while the largest was some nine or ten miles long by about three miles broad. These islands really constituted the northern bank of the river for a distance some twenty-four miles up the stream, being cut off from the mainland and from each other by narrow canal-like creeks running generally in a direction more or less east and west. The land all about here was low, and to a great extent swampy, the margin of the creeks being lined with mangroves that presented a very curious appearance as they stood up out of the dark, slimy-looking water, their trunks supported upon a network of naked, twisted roots that strongly suggested to me the idea of spiders’ legs swollen and knotted with some hideous, deforming disease. The trees themselves, however, apart from their twisted, gnarled, and knotted roots, presented a very pleasing appearance, for they had just come into full leaf, and their fresh green foliage was deeply grateful to the eye satiated with a long and wearisome repetition of the panorama of unbroken sea and sky. Beyond the belt of mangroves the islands were overgrown with dense bush, interspersed with tall trees, some of which were rich with violet blossoms growing in great drooping clusters, like the flowers of the laburnum; while others were heavily draped with long, trailing sprays of magnificent jasmine, of which there were two kinds, one bearing a pinky flower, and the other a much larger star-like bloom of pure white. The euphorbia, acacia, and baobab or calabash-tree were all in bloom; and here and there, through openings between the trunks of the mangroves, glimpses were caught of rich splashes of deep orange-colour, standing out like flame against the dark background of shadowed foliage, that subsequent investigation proved to be clumps of elegant orchids. It appeared that we had entered the river at precisely the right time of the year to behold it at its brightest and best, for the spring rains had only recently set in, and all Nature was rioting in the refreshment of the welcome moisture and bursting forth into a joyous prodigality of leaf and blossom, of colour and perfume, of life and glad activity. The forest rang with the calls and cries of pairing birds; flocks of parrots, parrakeets, and love-birds were constantly wheeling and darting hither and thither; kingfishers flitted low across the placid water, or watched motionless from some overhanging branch for the passage of their unsuspecting prey; the wydah bird flaunted his gay plumage in the brilliant sunshine, where it could be seen to the fullest advantage; and butterflies, like living gems, flitted happily from flower to flower. Astern of us, some three miles away, lay Boolambemba Point, the southernmost extremity of the group of islands to which I have already alluded, where the embouchure of the river may be said to begin, the stream here being about three and a half miles across, while immediately below it abruptly widens to a breadth of about five and a half miles at the indentation leading to Banana Creek, in the narrow approach to which we were lying at anchor. Of course it was not possible for us to distinguish, from where we were lying, much of the character of the country on the southern or left bank of the river, but it appeared to be pretty much the same as what we saw around us; that is to say, low land densely covered with bush and trees along the river margin, with higher land beyond. About half-a-mile beyond us, broad on our starboard bow as we were then lying, the anchorage narrowed down to a width of less than half-a-mile, the western extremity of the group of islands already referred to there converging toward Banana Peninsula in a low, mangrove-wooded point. Beyond this, however, could be seen a stretch of water about a mile and a half wide, which I subsequently learned ran for several miles up at the back of the islands, between them and the mainland, in the form of a narrow, shallow, canal-like creek that Bates, the master, seemed to think might well repay the trouble of careful inspection, since the narrow maze of channels to which it gave access offered exceptional facilities for the embarkation of slaves, and a choice of routes for the light-draught slavers from their places of concealment into the main channel of the river.