The old fellow became so enthusiastic that he insisted that we take a trip through Sankt Pauli with him. We went, and had a high old time. The captain got quite drunk, and he revealed a secret regret that lingered in his mind. What a sail-mender he had missed!
"Who will believe it on board," he muttered, "when I tell them that that my fine sail-mender turned out to be a count?"
XI
IN THE CAMEROONS, AND THE FAIRY OF FUERTEVENTURA
I have told of how the Emperor transferred me to the Panther, which was then assigned to our West African station, the Cameroons. If my being aboard the Panther inspired, in itself, vivid recollections of my past life, my service as an officer of the ship presently brought me to another and far more delightful memory of my sailing-ship days. This was an incident that not merely returned to me in imagination, but one that brought to me that rarest gift of fortune, a dream come true.
The events that preceded the climax of which I speak were such as to provide the ever-striking qualities of contrast. The African jungle, the pursuit of savage beasts, black warriors, an extraordinary black king, fantastic war dances and all the unearthly sights and sounds that are Africa, and then...
The commander of the Panther was reluctant to have his officers go big-game hunting in the interior and, as he said, risk their lives uselessly. We were forbidden to take rifles on shore with us. But a comrade and I smuggled our rifles out, and took a big canoe upstream. With a dozen Negroes at the paddles, we raced against the sluggish current of the Mungo River, between giant, overhanging walls of trees. After eighteen hours, we reached Mundame. Our only worth-while trophy so far was a crocodile—and crocodiles are hard to shoot, too, as they dive with surprising speed. We had also shot a few vultures, sea eagles, and monkeys. We could not quite bring ourselves to eat the flesh of the monkeys, which the natives consider a great delicacy. When wounded, a monkey cries and screams just like a child, but when skinned it loses its half-human appearance and looks like a big squirrel, or a woodchuck.
At Mundame the black people greeted us with eager cries:
"Massa, massa, plenty elephant."
We proceeded on an elephant hunt in which my friend Bryer and I must have cut rather poor figures as sportsmen! Our chase of the great beasts did not turn out to be quite what we had expected.