Yet this was exactly our position. We were a small party in the midst of a hostile population. Even if we had ventured to leave our camp we should have had to divide, one-half of us remaining on guard; but neither division would have been strong enough in any emergency, for those who went could not spare any coolies as scouts, whilst those who remained would have no sentries. When we went to fetch wood, we did not go out of sight of our fort, which was left to the care of the halt and lame, so to speak: the interpreters and the scullions, and I was quite uneasy about them when I saw the men leave of a morning.
A TOWER OF FORT ARCHINARD.
Our one safe road, the river, was blocked above and below the camp, for we had a rapid up-stream and a rapid down-stream, so that even quite small canoes could not pass.
There has been much talk of winter in the Arctic regions, and of course such a winter is always very severe, but the one we passed at Say was simply miserable. I really do think that the fact of all five of us Europeans having survived it, is a proof that we were endowed with a great amount of energy and vitality.
The temperature had much to do with our sufferings. It increased steadily until June, and then remained pretty stationary. The thermometer, which was set up beneath a little wooden shelter daily, reached extraordinary maxima. For one whole month the maximum fluctuated between forty and fifty degrees Centigrade, the atmosphere becoming heavier and more exhausting as the day wore on until sunset. During the night the maximum was generally a little over thirty degrees, and you must remember that I am speaking of the winter, when the air was pretty well saturated with moisture.
I have read in books of travel of countries where, to avoid succumbing from the heat, Europeans live in holes dug in the earth, and make negroes pour more or less fresh water on their heads from calabashes to keep them cool. We never got as far as that, but I do think that Say, at least in June and July, can compete in intensity of heat with any other place in the world.
In such an oven we quite lost our appetites!
Now ensued a time of terrible ennui. All our energy, all our gaiety, all our philosophy melted away before the awful prospect of living in this remote and hostile corner of the earth for five whole months; five months during which we knew we could not stir from the island; five months in which we must endure all the storms of heaven in our frail huts, and be exposed to the ceaseless plots against us of Amadu. The dreary, monotonous days in which nothing happened, did not even supply us with topics of conversation, so we talked more and more of France, which of course only intensified our home-sickness. Taburet, who had a wonderful memory for dates, seemed to find every day of the month an anniversary of some event.
It became a more serious matter when our ennui resulted in constant attacks of fever, but fortunately these attacks, thanks to the daily dose of quinine, were never very serious, only their recurrence was weakening, the more so that they were accompanied by what we called the Sudanite fever, a kind of moral affection peculiar to African soil.