With less than a hundred native troops recruited from the West Coast of Africa, he defended the State Station founded by Stanley at the Falls against thousands of Arab raiders. Most of the caps in his rifle cartridges were rendered useless by dampness and the Captain and his second in command, Lieutenant Dubois, a Belgian officer, fought shoulder to shoulder with his men in the hand-to-hand struggle that ensued. Subsequently practically all the natives deserted and Deane was left with Dubois and four loyal blacks. Under cover of darkness they escaped from the island on which the Station was located. On this journey Dubois was drowned.
For thirty days Deane and his four faithful troopers wandered through the forests, hiding during the day from their ferocious pursuers and sleeping in trees at night. On the thirtieth day he was captured by the savages. Unarmed, he sank to the ground overcome with weariness. A big native stood over him with his spear poised for the fatal thrust. A moment later the Englishman was surprised to see his enemy lower the weapon and grasp him by the hand. He had succored this savage two years before and had not been forgotten. Deane and his companions were convoyed under an escort to Herbert Ward's camp and he was nursed back to health.
Deane's death illustrates the irony that entered into the passing of so many African adventurers. Twelve months after he was snatched from the jaws of death on the banks of the Congo in the manner just described, he was killed while hunting elephants. A wounded beast impaled him on a tusk and then mauled him almost beyond recognition.
II
Since Stanleyville is the head of navigation on the Congo there is ordinarily no lack of boats. I was fortunate to be able to embark on the "Comte de Flandre," the Mauretania of those inland seas and the most imposing vessel on the river for she displaced five hundred tons. She flew the flag of the Huileries du Congo Belge, the palm oil concern founded by Lord Leverhulme and the most important all-British commercial interest in the Congo. She was one of a fleet of ten boats that operate on the Congo, the Kasai, the Kwilu and other rivers. I not only had a comfortable cabin but the rarest of luxuries in Central Africa, a regulation bathtub, was available. The "Comte de Flandre" had cabin accommodations for fourteen whites. The Captain was an Englishman and the Chief Engineer a Scotchman.
On this, as on most of the other Congo boats, the food is provided by the Captain, to whom the passengers pay a stipulated sum for meals. On the "Comte de Flandre," however, the food privilege was owned jointly by the Captain and the Chief Engineer. The latter did all the buying and it was almost excruciatingly funny to watch him driving real Scotch bargains with the natives who came aboard at the various stops to sell chickens, goats, and fruit. The engineer could scarcely speak a word of any of the native languages, but he invariably got over the fact that the price demanded was too high.
The passenger list of the "Comte de Flandre" included Englishmen, Belgians, Italians, and Portuguese. I was the only American. The steerage, firemen, and wood-boys were all blacks. With this international congress over which beamed the broad smile of Nelson, I started on the thousand-mile trip down the Congo River.
It is difficult to convey the impression that the Congo River gives. Serene and majestic, it is often well-nigh overwhelming in its immensity. Between Stanleyville and Kinshassa there are four thousand islands, some of them thirty miles in length. As the boat picks its way through them you feel as if you were travelling through an endless tropical park of which the river provides the paths. It has been well called a "Venice of Vegetation." The shores are brilliant with a variegated growth whose exotic smell is wafted out over the waters. You see priceless orchids entwined with the mangroves in endless profusion. Behind this verdure stretches the dense equatorial forest in which Stanley battled years ago in an almost impenetrable gloom. Aigrettes and birds of paradise fly on all sides and every hour reveals a hideous crocodile sunning himself on a sandspit.
Night on the Congo enhances the loneliness that you feel on all the Central African rivers. Although the settlements are more numerous and larger than those on the Lualaba and the Kasai, there is the same feeling of isolation the moment darkness falls. The jungle seems to be an all-embracing monster who mocks you with his silence. Joseph Conrad interpreted this atmosphere when he referred to it as having "a stillness of life that did not resemble peace,—the silence of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention." This is the Congo River.
