GALLERY FOREST AND BABOON.
CAMP ON LAKE LÉRÉ.
To reach the watershed to which our mystery river belonged—if it existed at all—it was necessary to travel many hundreds of weary miles. First 500 miles against the current. Then a land portage of eighty miles. Then a descent with the current of 200 miles, and then an ascent against the current of some 450 miles. Incredible as it may seem in these days of quick transport, this trek took four months to accomplish, and that before reaching the beginning of the unknown river. Long before we arrived there our scanty store of European provisions was finished, and we lived entirely upon the country. We had left England very poorly provided with provisions, as there were regulations still in force prohibiting the export of foodstuffs.
On our way and while waiting for our canoes, which had got sadly delayed among the shippers, we visited the native Sultan Buba Gida, as I described in Chapter X. On our return from Buba’s country—where we had some interesting shooting—we found our canoes ready for us. It did not take us long to get our gear ready, and off we started up-stream for the long and arduous journey before us. We made sails and fitted masts to the canoes, as we often had a following wind, and they assisted tremendously. W. was an accomplished waterman and steered one canoe, while I steered the big one. So as to be handy to our fleet we had been camped on a beautiful sand-bank while preparing for the start, and every evening we practised the boys in paddling. When the day came, when all was stowed neatly away, we rattled off up-stream at a great pace, passing easily any craft on the river.
As our way now lay for hundreds of miles through more or less well-known country, I will merely recount the incidents of more than ordinary interest. One of these happened when we made a halt for washing clothes. One of our boys—who could not swim—calmly walked into a very deep and dangerously swift part of the river to recover his shirt which had blown in. To his astonishment he found that he could not keep his head above water. Judging by the expression on the face which every now and again bobbed up at a rapidly increasing distance, this—to him—curious fact did not seem to alarm him at all. The perfect fool kept grinning every time his head came out. It suddenly dawned upon me that I had seen this kind of thing before, and that the boy was really drowning. I immediately shoved the naked headman—a clever swimmer—into the river, telling him to save the lad. But long before he reached him the gallant W. had towed him to the bank, where he continued to grin foolishly.
Another was when I pipped an enormous “croc.” He was floating lazily down the centre of the current when I shot him. Hit in the brain, he happened to float until some natives got their fish-harpoons into him. They towed him ashore and cut him up, and there in his inside was what I had read of in travellers’ tales, but had never before seen—a native woman’s brass bangle. The natives of the place claimed to know this croc. well, and even to know the name of the bangle’s former owner. The finding of the bangle did not at all prevent the natives from eating the croc. In connection with the finding of bangles in crocs.’ insides, a missionary we met advanced a theory that the crocs. picked up and swallowed a lot of these from the river bed. But he could not explain how the bangles got there.
Throughout this expedition W. and I lived for the most part on what we shot and on what we could buy from the natives. Almost everywhere we got whistling teal with great ease. One shot from W.’s 12-bore would usually provide enough for all hands. He seldom picked up less than five or six, and once we gathered twenty-nine from a single discharge. They were tender and fat enough to cook in their own juice, and their flavour was exquisite. They were literally in tens of thousands in some places. There were many other fowl in thousands also, but none were so good to eat as the whistlers, except the tiny and beautiful “butter-ball” teal. These were rather rare. The spur-winged goose and the Egyptian goose were also very numerous, but tough and strong in the pot. Guinea-fowl were very common, and the young ones were delicious, while the old ones made capital soup. On one occasion we heard guinea-fowl making a tremendous clatter in the bush by the river bank. We paddled over to shoot some for the pot. W. fired at one in a tree from the canoe. At the report a large lioness slunk away through the bush. This occurred on our way home, and as we were by that time satiated with lion we let her go unmolested.
