MANICURE.
The fee is twenty cowries, i.e., about one-fourteenth of a penny.
Nasaru did not like the look of the water. It did not now appear to have the same depth as when traversed on his previous journey. The vessel was stopped, and he went off in a small boat to explore the channel on the other side of the island. On coming back from his soundings he directed the Mungo Park through the new channel, which gave 5 feet and 6 feet of water, whereas we subsequently learnt that the one he had stopped at bore only 3 feet 6 inches.
During the journey from Lokoja to Burutu three times we have seen stern-wheelers fixed on a sandbank. Each occasion, after he had peered through his telescope, Captain Stephenson remarked, with a chuckle of satisfaction, “Not one of our Company’s.”
When a steamer of size goes aground there are three courses to be followed. Perhaps only one or two of them need be resorted to. The first is to try to get off by means of the propelling engines. If the vessel does not readily respond the engines are stopped, as to keep them going in such a position must cause the paddles to throw up sand, which, settling round, still further embeds the craft.
The first attempt yielding no satisfaction, the next step is to have the rowing-boat, slung at the side, brought to the bows and the anchor put in it and taken to deep water, dropped there, and a steel hawser attached. The other end of the hawser is led to a powerful windlass on the stern-wheeler, and on heaving away—in landlubbers’ parlance, the windlass working—the vessel usually comes from her grounding. For this purpose a stern-wheeler of the Mungo Park type carries three Trotman anchors—respectively 10 cwts., 8 cwts., and 4 cwts.—besides the ordinary patent anchor for general use.
But should the vessel be so firmly fixed that she cannot be moved off by either of the means stated, then there is a third resource. At low water every stern-wheeler tows a barge alongside. On the most severe form of going aground the barge is piled with cargo from the stern-wheeler, and, when sufficiently lightened, that vessel is drawn into the navigable channel by again heaving on the anchors. But though the steamer has floated, the heavily laden barge, which was alongside it, is now itself obviously aground, so the cargo is once more transferred to the stern-wheeler, the operation being carried out by a roomy rowing boat, which may go backwards and forwards scores of times on the errand. Thus a couple of days are easily consumed. Less haste, greater speed is an axiom of navigation on the Niger for several months of the year.
Opposite the town of Onitsha, near where we stopped for native passengers, there was a large depression in the bed of the river, which a battleship would not cover, holding 40 feet of water, but no anchorage, as the bed was rock. Yet the other side of the deep water gave no more than 2 feet, except where the channel ran. It is easy enough to wreck a vessel in these parts.