Ndong Koni, who had been long in my service, was captain of the Dorothy; the rest of the crew I had to choose with greater care than in former days, and it was difficult to find men who were qualified both by intelligence and trustworthiness. I discharged one man for disobedience in smoking a pipe over an open tank from which they were drawing gasoline.
On one occasion when I was preparing for a long trip up the river, Ndong Koni was absent; and not having time myself to look after every detail of the preparation, I entrusted to one of the crew, a boy named Toko, the work of filling the tank with gasoline. Toko was not a Fang, but a coastman. He was so black that he seemed to radiate darkness and create a kind of twilight in his neighbourhood. The Fang were like mulattoes beside him. He had worked some time for an English trader and had picked up a smattering of very original English. On this occasion Toko assured me that he “done fill the tank proper full.” But on the return trip the engine suddenly stopped one morning at daylight: the gasoline was exhausted. We were thirty miles from home: and it was the rough bay, not the river, that stretched between. There was only one thing to do; and in a few minutes we had anchored the Dorothy, and had started for Gaboon in a canoe, our purpose being to get the gasoline we required and return immediately.
The canoe was large and there were plenty of paddles, so I took with me every man on board except Toko, whom I left in charge of the Dorothy, to spend what I supposed would be the longest and most miserable day of his life. For I knew that we would not be back before midnight; and although the bay was now like glass the sea-breeze would rise about ten o’clock and increase all day long. The Dorothy was anchored in a very bad place and it was enough to make one sick in anticipation. But it was necessary that some one should remain in charge, and I was so indignant at Toko for his neglect that I had no compunction of conscience, but inwardly gloated like a cannibal over a feast. We are all cannibals by instinct when it comes to eating our enemies.
The sea-breeze later in the day became almost a gale, and was directly against us; the waves were soon crested with whitecaps and grew bigger and bigger. It took the combined strength of six men with paddles to make any headway in the last several hours. I felt quite safe, for Ndong Koni whom we had picked up along the way was steersman. The skill of the natives in canoeing—their instinctive balancing, their knowledge of the waves, and the proper way to receive each wave is marvellous; for of a hundred waves no two may be alike. The degree of tendency to careen at the stroke of each wave, or (if the sea is abeam) as the peak of the wave passes under the canoe, must be met by a dexterous stroke of the paddle of the steersman, or the counterpoise of the body. It is very exhilarating. Mind and muscle must act instantly. No sooner is one wave passed than the mind, dismissing it, leaps to the next encounter. One finds himself personifying the waves and regarding them as personal enemies whom he must fight or die. But our canoe was large, and strength as much as skill kept us from being swamped.
We reached Gaboon late in the afternoon and having procured gasoline and rigged our largest sailboat, the Lafayette, we immediately started back to the Dorothy. It was a wild night and very dark; but the wind was favourable, and there was not on all the coast of West Africa a better sailing boat of its size than the Lafayette. Many a night I have sailed in her on the open sea, to Corisco and Benito, sometimes when the night was pitch dark and the wind howling. Such a situation is far from conducive to sleep. But I had great confidence in the Lafayette. She combined speed and daring with amiability and was a boat to admire and love.
But we are now on our way back to the Dorothy and to the rescue of poor Toko. We reached the Dorothy at midnight. Long before this I had relented towards Toko. Indeed, soon after the sea-breeze arose in the morning, and I knew the Dorothy was rolling in the trough of the sea, I was disappointed to find that I was not really enjoying his discomfiture as much as I had anticipated. As the wind blew harder I experienced an emotional reaction, and I felt more and more sorry for him. When night came on the loneliness of his situation, far from land, on a rough sea, added another appealing element, and it would have been the easiest thing in the world to have obtained a promise from me to raise his wages if we should succeed in rescuing him from his miserable plight. Many hours before we reached him we saw the dim solitary light, indicating that the Dorothy was at least afloat. Then we could see the light swaying from side to side with the rolling and plunging of the vessel. On we sped, while the light seemed far away as ever; then, all at once, it flashed with sudden nearness, and in a few minutes we were at the gangway.
I called to Toko as we approached, but received no answer. Even as we came alongside there was no response to our united call. I sprang on board and rushed into the cabin only to stumble over some unwonted obstacle that nearly pitched me on my head. The obstacle was the living body of Toko, who to my question replied: “Mastah, I done pass fine day. I been sleep all time. All this day and all this night I no wake, only for eat and for make them head-light.”
I muttered in reply: “You incorrigible rascal! You ought to have been sick. You know you ought.”
Several times I ascended the upper Gaboon, called the Como; further than any launch had ever gone, to a town thirty miles above Angom, and one hundred miles from the sea. The Como on its way to the sea cuts through the Sierra del Crystal Mountains. The course of the river through the mountains is tortuous and through deep gorges. The current is exceedingly swift; and the channel, which is deep but narrow, is filled with projecting rocks and hidden snags. The water pours through these gorges in a succession of rapids, or waltzes down in whirling eddies, or, again, coils and twists like an angry serpent. In contrast to the repulsive and evil-smelling mangrove swamps of the lower river, the scenery of the upper river is magnificent and exquisitely beautiful. The hills part before us as if by magic; while with each short curve the scene is changed. The high banks, from the tops of the trees even to the water, are draped with a veil of delicate vines, covered with flowers of white and lavender, and festooned upon the banks with long, drooping ferns, all swinging in the wind. A picturesque native town, perched upon a high summit, is named Home of the Moon.
Navigation through this channel is difficult and dangerous. Ndong Koni had charge of the wheel, and no white man could have surpassed him. A momentary glance at the surface of the water was sufficient to tell him what was beneath. He knew exactly the allowance to make for the strength of a whirlpool, or the force of the current in a short curve. An error of judgment, or a moment’s hesitation, in some places might have been our destruction.