WHY THE CANOE UPSET
The mist of the river still hung in the air in the gray morning light.
Early as it was, the men of the village were astir, making ready for
their expedition. Mpoko and Nkula, rubbing their eyes, made a hasty
breakfast and scampered down to the river bank with their fishing
tackle.
The boys had two new scoop nets, which Nkunda had helped to make. Like
all the children of the village, they could do all sorts of things with
fiber string, and could even make the string. Hibiscus fiber, braided
palm leaves, thongs, and bark, all were used for string, thread, or
cord as each happened to be wanted. Strands of fiber were made into
string by rolling with the hand, on the thigh. Mpoko and Nkunda and
Nkula, and even their younger playmates, could make any number of
cat’s cradles. One looked like a locust, another like a grass hut with
four sides and a pointed top; and another was called “The Bed.” The
Alo Man had taught them one named for the great zigzag valley of the
Zambezi--the Batoka Gorge, below the Victoria Falls, which are three
times as high as Niagara. The Alo Man could also make the Moon figure,
the Moon darkened, the Fighting Lions and the Parrot Cage; and the boys
knew figures called the Fish Trap, the Pit, and the Calabash Net.
Mpoko knew exactly how he should go about his fishing, although he
had never fished in the part of the river where he and Nkula were
going that morning. He was always the leader in their sports, and as
they squatted on the end of a canoe waiting for the men to come, he
explained his plan all over again. They would fish in two ways. First,
they would look for a pool or backwater where the current was not as
strong as it was in mid-channel. In the water, but near the bank, they
would build little lattice-work fences, about eighteen inches apart.
Then they would take the larger of their nets and find some rocks on
which to stand while they dipped the net into the water with the mouth
upstream. Fish swimming downstream would swim into the net and be
caught. Then the boys would lift the net out and lay the fish on the
rocks to dry. There were said to be plenty of little fish something
like whitebait in that part of the river, and if they had good luck,
there would be fresh fish for supper.
When they were tired of this way of fishing, they would take the
smaller nets and go back to the pool where they had built their fences,
and here they might find some small fish that had come in between the
fences and could not find their way out. The small nets would scoop up
these little fish quite easily.
Mpoko knew as well as any one that it is not very wise to count your
fish while they are still in the river, but he could not help making a
guess at the number they might get in a whole day’s fishing. The men
heard him and grinned as they started to push off the canoes.
The boats were heavy, but they rode well in the water. They were worked
by means of paddles, and each was made of a single tree trunk hollowed
out. The people of this thatch-roofed village had no knowledge of
carpenter work. Whatever they made of wood was cut out of the solid
block with their adzes. In this way they would chisel out a log until
a good-sized hollow had been formed; then hot stones were placed in it
to burn out a deeper hole. When the stones cooled, they were heated
again to be put back after the charred wood was scraped away; this was
done over and over, until the canoe was deep enough to be seaworthy.
Sometimes the ends were carved to look like the head of some animal.
The paddles also were sometimes decorated with chip-carving. The
African dugout is not so graceful as the birch canoe, but it has some
advantages of its own. The Congo is a peculiar river.
One reason why so much of Africa is still wild country, some of it not
even explored, is that there are so many falls in the rivers. Boats
cannot go up from the sea to the interior unless they are light enough
to be carried round the falls. And boats that are small enough for this
are too small to be of much use in carrying goods for trading or large
parties of settlers. Another reason is that so much of the country is
either dense jungle or waterless plain. Almost the only way to carry
goods into the Upper Congo country is by porters, who have to follow
narrow trails, in single file.
[Illustration]
Where such a trail crosses a river too deep to ford,--and in flood
time African rivers are likely to be deep,--of course there must be
a bridge. The wild people are clever at making woven bridges. To be
sure, these bridges are not wide enough for horses or wagons, but there
are no horses or wagons to go over them, so that makes no difference.
Travelers pay something for the privilege of using such a bridge, while
the men of the country near by keep it in order. It was to repair a
bridge that the men of Mpoko’s village were going downstream now.
The canoes shot swiftly down with the current. The two boys, with their
keen black eyes, saw all sorts of interesting things by the way. Once
they disturbed a hippopotamus having one of his daily baths. His great
mouth looked as if he could swallow them whole, but he was much more
scared than they were. Once the strange, whiskered, black and white
face of a colobus monkey peered out of a tree top. Then a crowned
crane, his feathered crest very erect, rose out of the swamp and
flapped away, his long legs trailing behind him. Even as early as this
the sun was blazing hot as a furnace and the mist had burned quite away.
There was no need to paddle; the men had all they could do to steer
the canoes as they rode on the strong current. At last they shot round
a bend of the river and into the shadow of the bridge and scrambled
ashore.
The bridge was made of saplings firmly lashed together and had a
handrail of rattan. It hung from the great trees on the two sides of
the river, high above even the reach of a flood. A log bridge might
have been swept away by the caving of the banks in flood time, and the
people could not possibly have built a stone bridge or an iron one.
When the traders were coming back from their last journey, they had
noticed that the supports of the bridge were rather shaky, and as they
meant to send a much larger caravan over it before long, they wanted to
make sure that all was in order.
[Illustration]
Over narrow streams, bridges are sometimes made of a bundle of slim
tree trunks lashed together and resting on the banks, but here the
river was too wide for that. Farther down, the banks of the Lower
Congo are steep hills, a mile and a quarter apart, and through this
funnel-like channel the Upper Congo and its tributary streams pour
their waters into a tremendous whirlpool known as the Devil’s Cook Pot.
None of the men of the village had ever seen this awful place, but they
had heard of it, and many were the tales told of the dangers of the
unknown waters toward which their river flowed through the wilderness.
While the men worked at the lashings of the timbers and the closer
knotting of the ropes, the boys went about their fishing. They did not
have much trouble in finding a suitable shallow place for their little
wicker fences, but when they came to fish with the scoop net, Mpoko
discovered that he had not reckoned on the strength of the stream. His
best net was whirled away out of his hand before he had used it twice.
Thereafter the boys had to take turns, one using the remaining large
net while the other fished in the shallows.
Their misfortunes did not end there. They had just gathered all their
little fishes into a woven basket, when Nkula darted back from the
river with a startled shout, and Mpoko turned just in time to see net,
fish, and all vanish into the long, wicked jaws of a crocodile.
The boys were in luck, as one of the men told them, not to have gone
into the crocodile’s stomach themselves. All the same, they felt very
cheap to be going home with only a few mean little fish for the whole
day’s work.
The bridge had now been put in order, and as the party took boat again
for home, several crocodile stories were told. Every one of the men had
had some experience with the Terror of the Waters. They all knew how
he would lie for hours in the mud with only his nose in sight, looking
exactly like a fallen log, and how his hoarse call could sometimes be
heard in the swamp through the whole night. The boys felt secretly glad
to be on the way home in a solid, well-balanced log canoe.
It was slower work returning than it had been coming down the river,
and the paddles worked steadily. When they had traveled some distance,
a hunter from another village hailed them from the trail. He had a wild
pig that he did not wish to carry home and after a little bargaining
the bridge menders paid for it and it was tumbled into the canoe. As
one of the men said slyly, roast pork for supper would do very well,
seeing that the boys had not caught enough fish to make a showing!
At home, in the village, the women had come in and were at work as
usual preparing supper. A little before sunset, far down the river, the
voices of men singing came over the water, and as the song grew louder
they could make out something about roast pig for supper.
“They must have killed something,” said Nkunda.
“The boys have had bad luck with their fishing,” said the Alo Man,
whose keen ears had caught the little jeering note in the song.
In another minute the canoes would come in sight round the bend in the
river, when--all at once--there was a great splash and a chorus of
yells, and the song broke off in the middle of a line. When the canoes
presently appeared, the men were no longer singing; they were paddling
with all their might, and they looked rather scared and crestfallen.
[Illustration]
Mpoko and Nkula, however, did not look crestfallen. They grinned as
only small African boys can grin, as they hopped out of the canoe and
scampered for the huts with their few but precious fish.
“Where is that roast pork we were going to have for supper?” asked the
Alo Man, coming to meet the party.
“We were nearly home when a crocodile rose up almost under the canoe,
snapped at the pig, tipped us over, and went off with the meat,”
growled one of the men.
Thus, after all, there would not have been nearly so good a supper that
night if the boys had not gone fishing.
Crocodile stories were naturally in order after supper, and the Alo
Man, when his turn came, told the story of the Rabbit and the Crocodile.
* * * * *
I always like to tell of the time, long and long ago, when the
creatures lived in towns like people, and had their own farms.
[Illustration]
The Crocodile had a farm by the river, and he used to come up on land
when he liked. One day, as he lay sunning himself on his farm, the
Rabbit saw him.
“How do you do, Uncle?” said the Rabbit, edging up toward him. “You
seem to be taking life easy. All you have to do is to sleep, and eat,
and bathe, and enjoy yourself.”
“Let me alone,” grunted the Crocodile, who was sleepy. And he shut his
eyes.
Close to the Crocodile’s nose there grew a nice juicy bunch of young
plantains.
“How good those leaves do look!” thought the Rabbit. “And there they
grow and flourish under the very nose of a creature who never eats
them. I wonder if I could not get just one good bite, and then run?”
The Rabbit crept up closer and closer, but just as he was going to
nibble at the leaves, the Crocodile woke up and yelled at him.
“Get away from here, you little thief!” he roared, and he snapped so
savagely with his sharp, white, pointed teeth that the Rabbit ran
faster than he had ever thought he possibly could run, and never
stopped until he reached home.
He told his wife and children about the selfish old Crocodile, who was
so full of dinner that he could not keep awake and who would not let a
hungry little Rabbit nibble the leaves that he did not want himself.
When the little Rabbits heard why they had no supper that night, they
had a great deal to say about the Crocodile.
“That is all very well,” said the Rabbit, “but when a chicken is the
judge, the cockroach gets no justice. We cannot depend on any one else
to punish the Crocodile; we must do it ourselves. Come all of you and
get dry grass and leaves, and we will go and lay them in a circle
around the Crocodile while he is asleep, and then we will set them on
fire. We’ll give him a fine scare.”
Then all the Rabbits wriggled with joy and kicked up their heels at the
thought of what was going to happen, and they gathered many armfuls of
grass and leaves and laid them in a circle round the Crocodile. The
fire was kindled, and it began to blaze up and smoke. The Rabbits hid
themselves in the bushes and kept as still as stones.
Crackle--crackle--snap-snap-snap! went the fire, but the Crocodile did
not wake up.
Snap! snap! snap! went the burning twigs, but the Crocodile did not
wake up.
The smoke began to get thicker and blacker, until at last they could
not see the Crocodile, but they heard him cough in his sleep. Then he
turned over, and coughed again.
“Haugh! Haugh! What’s the matter here? I can’t breathe!” grunted the
Crocodile.
Then he choked, and coughed, and opened his mouth so wide that a live
coal flew into it. At that he woke up completely. He made a rush to get
away from the fire, but found it in front of him. He turned round, and
saw it still in front of him, while at the same time it was behind him
scorching the end of his tail. Then he made one big jump and got out of
the circle of fire, and his hide was so thick that he was hardly burned
at all, but he was badly scared and very angry. When he heard all the
squealing and laughter of the Rabbits in the bushes, he was so angry he
could hardly speak.
“Don’t you ever dare to come near the river again!” he shouted, and off
he waddled as fast as he could go, to get into the cool water and put
mud on his burned places.
[Illustration]
“Don’t you ever dare to come up here on the land again!” squealed
the Rabbits, and they set about gathering the plantains and other
vegetables on the Crocodile’s farm where the fire had not come.
And from that day to this the Rabbits never go near the river if they
can help it, and the Crocodile never goes far from the river if he can
help it. He does not like to be reminded of the time when he was caught
in the fire by a trick and the Rabbits laughed at him, for the news
went from one tongue to another, and the Crocodile has never heard the
last of it.
[Illustration]