It was on March 14 that we first saw the terrible Labezenga rapid, and I am very sure that we shall none of us ever forget it.
Our guide began the day by performing a number of mummeries, the aim of which appears to have been to make various evil genii propitious to us. From a leather bag he took out a lot of flat and shaly flints which had been picked up in the rapid. He wrapped each one of these flints in a separate piece of cloth, spat upon them, and arranged them here and there all over the boat.
The current rapidly swept us into a part of the river pretty free from obstruction, and every now and then I tried to distract our guide’s attention from his spells and to get him to give me a little information, but he merely replied without looking at me that there was no danger, and that he would stop us at the right time.
THE LABEZENGA RAPIDS.
Often from behind some little jutting out point which intercepted our view I heard a peculiar noise, a sort of dull but vague roar. The rate of the current too increased rapidly, and we rushed along at a rate of five miles an hour at the least. We listened eagerly, but all of a sudden we saw that the stream was barred from side to side, a distance of something like a thousand yards, by a positive wall of rocks against which the water was dashing up in foam.
Our idiot of a guide looked up at last and saw the danger. He motioned to us to steer for the bank, but rushing along as we were with the tremendous current, to attempt to do so would have been merely to drift helplessly on to the line of rocks, so we continued to dash on with a speed which almost made me giddy, and presently, to my intense relief, I saw a place on the right where there was less foam. Yes, it was the pass, it was the gate of safety, we must make for it, but was there any hope of our reaching it?
Our coolies bent to their oars and rowed so hard that they were in danger of breaking them, whilst the sweat poured down their shining black skins. I had just time to hoist the signal “Do as we do!” which most fortunately Baudry and the captain of the Dantec understood. They were just behind us. Now up with the oars and trust to our luck! The speed increases yet more, the stream sweeps the boat towards the pass, where it flings itself into the lower reach: we feel ourselves falling, we shudder, we realize the fatal attraction drawing us in the direction of the whirlpool; then like an arrow we shoot safely through the opening. All is well with us at least. Our next anxiety is for our comrades; we look behind, and a cry of terror bursts from our lips. The Dantec, which is the next to attempt the pass, has stopped suddenly; her mast is swept asunder, and has been flung across the bow by the violence of the shock. All the men were thrown at the same moment to the bottom of the boat, for the unlucky barge, which had tried to pass about three feet on one side of the place where we had got safely through, had struck against a rock which was hidden by the whirling foam. She received a tremendous blow, but fortunately did not sink.
But where was the Aube? That was our care now. She was approaching rapidly, borne on by the current, but the whole pass was blocked before her. She would crash into the Dantec, and both vessels must inevitably be wrecked.
But no! Clouds of spray dash up over bow and stern alike; Baudry has flung out the anchor and the grappling-iron: oh that they may grip properly!