Afterwards he worked on the launch and was with me all the time, often in trying circumstances, but he always presented the same contrast to the ingratitude and selfishness of the heathenism around him.
The two boys, Ndong Bisia and Ndong Koni, are associated with an incident in which they displayed a heroism of devotion that may perhaps enable the reader to understand how it is that a white man can love the people of the jungles.
One day we started on a journey with the Dorothy and had gone twenty-five miles, across the bay, when an accident occurred which stopped the engine. The remainder of that day, and a considerable part of the night and all the next day, I tried in vain to make the repair. I then decided to leave the launch and go home in a canoe, returning immediately with the Lafayette and crew to tow the Dorothy back to Libreville. An approaching fever also warned me not to work any longer at the engine. It chanced that I had only a very small canoe in tow. I was therefore dependent upon being able to procure a larger one from some native who might pass that way; and we were in an out-of-the-way place.
At last a canoe came in sight, in which was one solitary woman. I called loudly to her across the water, but she was afraid and would not come near. Among the heterogeneous and somewhat outlandish variety of goods which I always carried there happened to be a dress which had once belonged to a white woman and which had been discarded years before, when the woman returned to America. It was a gorgeous purple affair, much the worse for wear. The native woman (to whom I offered it), yelling at the very top of her voice, answered: “What do I want with a dress? I’m all right as I am; I never had any such thing on in my life.”
I told her that this was a very fine dress which had once been worn by a white woman.
She hesitated, but again answered: “It would only cover my ornaments so that people would not know that I have them; and besides it would not fit me.”
Her “ornaments” were half a dozen large brass leg-rings which she wore between her ankles and her knees.
But necessity in this instance was not only loud, but eloquent. I pleaded that she could rattle her ornaments as she walked—which they know well how to do—and the people would think that she had ever so many; and, besides, when they were covered she would not need to keep them polished. As to its fitting, I yelled to her that I had scissors, needle and thread, and that I would make it fit perfectly. Being at various times engineer, carpenter and blacksmith, it was easy enough to be a dressmaker.
There was some persuasion in my arguments, for again she hesitated. But, after further reflection, she moved on, replying: “I’m all right as I am;” in which mind I presume she continues to this day.
Two hours after nightfall another canoe approached, in which were several men whom on a former occasion I had towed across the bay, and they were now eager to do anything possible to help me. I borrowed their canoe and engaged one of their men. The canoe was a lamentable and ancient affair. One side was badly split, and in the other side there was a part so rotten that I thought I could have thrust my foot through it. The sail was a mosaic of old shirts and other cast-off garments. The sheet was a bit of rotten rope pieced out with vine. After a thorough inspection I was unable to pronounce the craft seaworthy, but I decided to risk it; and, in case of emergency, I provided myself with a saucepan and a ball of twine: the former to bail out water, and the latter for a variety of uses.