With a view to barter, he placed in his gig four old rusty muskets, some well-worn table knives, old coats, pots and kettles, while, to be prepared for any emergency, four rifles, carefully loaded and capped, were concealed in the stern sheets, and Mrs. Baylis, Hartly, and I accompanied him on this expedition, which was the commencement of a series of disasters, that ended in the destruction of nearly all concerned.
For the lady's comfort, an awning was rigged over the stern of the gig, which, being rowed by eight oars, ran rapidly close in shore, where we saw a number of black fellows in a state of semi-nudity, gabbling, gesticulating violently, and watching our arrival with considerable interest.
Some of their actions seeming to indicate hostility as they brandished long spears and asseguys, Captain Baylis stood up in the boat and displayed his old pots and kettles, making signs that he wished to trade or barter with them. On this they uttered a simultaneous yell, and disappeared among the mangroves, which fringed all the bank of the river, and formed a species of natural arcade by their branches arching over from the solid soil, and taking root in the slimy water.
Of this unsatisfactory result we could make nothing; but in no way daunted, Captain Baylis (though saying that he "wished he had left his good wife on board") steered for a little creek, on entering which, we lost sight alike of the Pongo islets and the Princess, which lay at anchor in the estuary, about four miles off.
Beaching partly the sharp-prowed and handsome gig in the soft sand, Baylis, Hartly, and I sprang ashore, and looked in every direction among the tall weeds and mangroves for our sable traders; but all was silent and still. The breast of the broad river was undisturbed by a ripple, and seemed to sleep in the sultry sunshine; the silence of the mighty forests that grew along its banks was unbroken by a sound; and the vast baobab or calibash trees, with their gigantic yellow fruit and wondrous horizontal branches, covered by foliage, were drooping listlessly in the hot and breathless atmosphere of the tropical noon.
"I don't understand this, and, moreover, I don't much like it," said Captain Baylis, in a low voice to Hartly and me; "for when I was here before I found the darkies ready enough to 'make friends,' as they term it, and to exchange their elephants' tusks, panther skins, and camwood for any rubbish we could collect on board."
But he knew not that, at this time, one of the crew of an American ship which sailed on the previous day had wantonly shot the fetisher, or priest of a village, and thus inspired the people with hostility to all white strangers; and it is not improbable that they conceived the Yankee and the Princess to be one and the same vessel.
After looking about us for some time, and finding that none of the natives returned, Baylis proposed that we should pull a little higher up the stream, to the village of the Rio Serpientes—or Snake River, as it is called in the charts—a tributary of the Gabon.
The giant size of the plants, shrubs, and trees, their wonderful greenness and luxuriance, the brilliance of the flowers, the loud hum of insect-life, where insects are as large as birds at home, the depth of the forest dingles, and the overpowering heat of the atmosphere, all served to impress me with novelty and strangeness; while mingled emotions of wonder, pleasure, and apprehension filled my breast.
With deep interest I trod this wondrous soil, of which so little is known. "For three centuries," says some one, "our ships have circumnavigated Africa, and yet, with a few exceptions, our knowledge of its districts is very incomplete; while the interior presents to the eye a blank in geography—an unsolved problem, in moral as well as physical science." Though nearly four thousand years ago the valley of the Nile was the cradle of art and commerce, we know no more about the Mountains of the Moon than old Ptolemy himself knew.