Our skipper's instructions were to the effect that he was, in the first
instance, to report himself to the governor of Sierra Leone; and it was
to that port, therefore, that we now made the best of our way.
The breeze with which we started carried us handsomely down channel and
half-way across the Bay of Biscay, and the ship proving to be a regular
flyer, everybody, from the skipper downwards, was in the very best of
spirits. Then came a change, the wind backing out from south-west with
squally weather which placed us at once upon a taut bowline; and
simultaneously with this change of weather a most disagreeable discovery
was made, namely, that the _Daphne_ was an exceedingly crank ship.
However, we accomplished the passage in a little over three weeks; and
after remaining at Sierra Leone for a few hours only, proceeded for the
mouth of the Congo, off which we expected to fall in with the _Fawn_,
which ship we had been sent out to relieve. Proceeding under easy
canvas, in the hope of picking up a prize by the way--in which hope, so
however, we were disappointed--we reached our destination in twenty-
three days from Sierra Leone; sighting the _Fawn_ at daybreak and
closing with her an hour afterwards. Her skipper came on board the
_Daphne_ and remained to breakfast with Captain Vernon, whom--our
skipper being a total stranger to the coast--he posted up pretty
thoroughly in the current news, as well as such of the "dodges" of the
slavers as he had happened to have picked up. He said that at the
moment there were no ships in the river, but that intelligence--whether
trustworthy or no, however, he could not state--had reached him of the
daily-expected arrival of three ships from Cuba. He also confirmed a
very extraordinary story which had been told our skipper by the governor
of Sierra Leone, to the effect that large cargoes of slaves, known to
have been collected on shore up the river, awaiting the arrival of the
slavers, had from time to time disappeared in a most mysterious manner,
at times when, as far as could be ascertained, no craft but men-o'-war
were anywhere near the neighbourhood. At noon the _Fawn_ filled away
and bore up for Jamaica--whither she was to proceed preparatory to
returning home to be paid off--her crew manning the rigging and giving
us a parting cheer as she did so; and two hours later her royals dipped
below the horizon, and we were left alone in our glory.
On parting from the _Fawn_ we filled away again upon the starboard tack,
the wind being off the shore, and at noon brought the ship to an anchor
in nine fathoms of water off Padron Point (the projecting headland on
the southern side of the river's mouth) at a distance of two miles only
from the shore. The order was then given for the men to go to dinner as
soon as that meal could be got ready; it being understood that,
notwithstanding the _Fawn's_ assurance as to there being no ships in the
river, our skipper intended to satisfy himself of that fact by actual
examination. Moreover, the deserted state of the river afforded us an
excellent opportunity for making an unmolested exploration of it--making
its acquaintance, so to speak, in order that at any future time, if
occasion should arise, we might be able to make a dash into it without
feeling that we were doing so absolutely blindfold.
At 1:30 p.m. the gig was piped away; Mr Austin being in charge, with me
for an _aide_, all hands being fully armed.
The wind had by this time died away to a dead calm; the sun was blazing
down upon us as if determined to roast us as we sat; and we had a long
pull before us, for although the ship lay only two miles from the shore,
we had to round a low spit, called, as Mr Austin informed me, Shark
Point, six miles away, in a north-easterly direction, before we could be
said to be fairly in the river.
For this point, then, away we stretched, the perspiration streaming from
the men at every pore. Fortunately the tide had begun to make before we
started, and it was therefore in our favour. We had a sounding-line
with us, which we used at frequent intervals; and by its aid we
ascertained that at a distance of one mile from the shore the shallowest
water between the ship and Shark Point was about three and a half
fathoms at low water. This was at a spot distant some three and a half
miles from the point. Half a mile further on we suddenly deepened our
water to forty-five fathoms; and at a distance of only a quarter of a
mile from the point as we rounded it, the lead gave us fifteen fathoms,
shortly afterwards shoaling to six fathoms, which depth was steadily
maintained for a distance of eight miles up the river, the extent of our
exploration on this occasion. On our return journey we kept a little
further off the shore, and found a corresponding increase in the depth
of water; a result which fully satisfied us that we need have no
hesitation about taking the _Daphne_ inside should it at any time seem
desirable so to do.
Immediately abreast of Shark Point is an extensive creek named Banana
Creek; and hereabouts the river is fully six miles wide. On making out
the mouth of this creek it was our first intention to have explored it;
but on rounding the point and fairly entering the river, we made out so
many snug, likely-looking openings on the southern side that we
determined to confine our attention to that side first.
In the first place, immediately on rounding Shark Point we discovered a
bay at the back of it, roughly triangular in shape, about four miles
broad across the base, and perhaps three miles deep from base to apex.
At the further end of the base of this triangular bay we descried the
mouth of the creek; and at the apex or bottom of the bay, another. The
latter of these we examined first, making the discovery that the mouth
or opening gave access to _three_ creeks instead of one; they were all,
however, too shallow to admit anything drawing over ten feet, even at
high-water; and the land adjoining was also so low and the bush so
stunted--consisting almost exclusively of mangroves--that only a partial
concealment could have been effected unless a ship's upper spars were
struck for the occasion. A low-rigged vessel, such as a felucca, would
indeed find complete shelter in either of the two westernmost creeks--
the easternmost had only three feet of water in it when we visited it;
but the shores on either side consisted only of a brownish-grey fetid
mud, of a consistency little thicker than pea-soup; and the facilities
for embarking slaves were so utterly wanting that we felt sure we need
not trouble ourselves at any future time about either of these creeks.
The other creek, that which I have described as situated at the further
end of the base of the triangle forming the bay, was undoubtedly more
promising; though, like the others, it could only receive craft of small
tonnage, having a little bar of its own across its mouth, on which at
half-tide, which was about the time of our visit, there was only seven
feet of water. Its banks, however, were tolerably firm and solid; the
jungle was thicker and higher; though little more than a cable's length
wide at its mouth, it was nearly a mile in width a little further in;
and branching off from it, right and left, there were three or four
other snug-looking little creeks, wherein a ship of light draught might
lie as comfortably as if in dry-dock, and wherein, by simply sending
down topgallant-masts, she would be perfectly concealed. Mr Austin
would greatly have liked to land here and explore the bush a bit on each
side of the creek; but our mission just then was to make a rough survey
of the river rather than of its banks, so we reluctantly made our way
back once more to the broad rolling river.
A pull of a couple of miles close along the shore brought us to the
entrance of another creek, which for a length of two miles averaged
quite half a mile wide, when it took a sharp bend to the right, or in a
southerly direction, and at the same time narrowed down to less than a
quarter of a mile in width. For the first two miles we had plenty of
water, that is to say, there was never less than five fathoms under our
keel; but with the narrowing of the creek it shoaled rapidly, so that by
the time we had gone another mile we found ourselves in a stream about a
hundred yards wide and only six feet deep. The mangrove-swamp, however,
had ceased; and the grassy banks, shelving gently down to the water on
each side, ended in a narrow strip of reddish sandy beach. The bush
here was very dense and the vegetation extremely varied, whilst the
foliage seemed to embrace literally all the colours of the rainbow.
Greens of course predominated, but they were of every conceivable shade,
from the pale delicate tint of the young budding leaf to an olive which
was almost black. Then there was the ruddy bronze of leaves which
appeared just ready to fall; and thickly interspersed among the greens
were large bushes with long lance-shaped leaves of a beautifully
delicate ashen-grey tint; others glowed in a rich mass of flaming
scarlet; whilst others again had a leaf thickly covered with short white
sheeny satin-like fur--I cannot otherwise describe it--which gleamed and
flashed in the sun-rays as though the leaves were of polished silver.
Some of the trees were thickly covered with blossoms exquisite both in
form and colour; while as to the passion-plant and other flowering
creepers, they were here, there, and everywhere in such countless
varieties as would have sent a botanist into the seventh heaven of
delight.
That this vast extent of jungle was not tenantless we had frequent
assurance in the sudden sharp cracking of twigs and branches, as well as
other more distant and more mysterious sounds; an occasional glimpse of
a monkey was caught high aloft in the gently swaying branches of some
forest giant; and birds of gorgeous plumage but more or less discordant
cries constantly flitted from bough to bough, or swept in rapid flight
across the stream.
We were so enchanted with the beauty of this secluded creek that though
the time was flitting rapidly away Mr Austin could not resist the
temptation to push a little further on, notwithstanding the fact that we
had already penetrated higher than a ship, even of small tonnage, could
possibly reach; and the men, nothing loath, accordingly paddled gently
ahead for another mile. At this point we discovered that the tide was
met and stopped by a stream of thick muddy fresh water; the creek or
river, whichever you choose to call it, had narrowed in until it was
only about a hundred feet across; and the water had shoaled to four
feet. The trees in many places grew right down to the water's edge; the
roots of some, indeed, were actually covered, and here and there the
more lofty ones, leaning over the stream on either side, mingled their
foliage overhead and formed a leafy arch, completely excluding the sun's
rays and throwing that part of the river which they overarched into a
deep green twilight shadow to which the eye had to become accustomed
before it was possible to see anything. A hundred yards ahead of us
there was a long continuous _tunnel_ formed in this way; and, on
entering it, the men with one accord rested on their oars and allowed
the boat to glide onward by her own momentum, whilst they looked around
them, lost in wonder and admiration.
As we shot into this watery lane, and the roll of the oars in the
rowlocks ceased, the silence became profound, almost oppressively so,
marked and emphasised as it was by the lap and gurgle of the water
against the boat's planking. Not a bird was here to be seen; not even
an insect--except the mosquitoes, by the by, which soon began to swarm
round us in numbers amply sufficient to atone for the absence of all
other life. But the picture presented to our view by the long avenue of
variegated foliage, looped and festooned in every direction with flowery
creepers loaded with blooms of the most gorgeous hues; and the deep
green--almost black--shadows, contrasted here and there with long arrowy
shafts of greenish light glancing down through invisible openings in the
leafy arch above, and lighting up into prominence some feathery spray or
drooping flowery wreath, was enchantingly beautiful.
We were all sitting motionless and silent, wrapped in admiration of the
enchanting scene, all the more enchanting, perhaps, to us from its
striking contrast to the long monotony of sea and sky only upon which
our eyes had so lately rested, when a slight, sharp, crackling sound--
proceeding from apparently but a short distance off in the bush on our
port bow--arrested our attention. The boat had by this time lost her
way, and the men, abruptly roused from their trance of wondering
admiration, were about once more to dip their oars in the water when Mr
Austin's uplifted hand arrested them.
The sounds continued at intervals; and presently, without so much as the
rustling of a bough to prepare us for the apparition, a magnificent
antelope emerged from the bush about fifty yards away, and stepped
daintily down into the water. His quick eye detected in an instant the
unwonted presence of our boat and ourselves, and instead of bowing his
head at once to drink, as had evidently been his first intention, he
stood motionless as a statue, gazing wonderingly at us. He was a superb
creature, standing as high at the shoulders as a cow, with a smooth,
glossy hide of a very light chocolate colour--except along the belly and
on the inner side of the thighs, where the hair was milk-white--and
long, sharp, gracefully curving horns. We were so close to him that we
could even distinguish the greenish lambent gleam of his eyes.
Mr Austin very cautiously reached out his hand for a musket which lay
on the thwart beside him, and had almost grasped it, when--in the
millionth part of a second, as it seemed to me, so rapid was it--there
was a flashing swirl of water directly in front of the deer, and before
the startled creature had time to make so much as a single movement to
save itself, an immense alligator had seized it by a foreleg and was
tug-tugging at it in an endeavour to drag it into deep water. The deer,
however, though taken by surprise and at a disadvantage, was evidently
determined not to yield without a struggle, and, lowering his head, he
made lunge after lunge at his antagonist with the long, sharply-pointed
horns which had so excited my admiration, holding bravely back with his
three disengaged legs the while.
"Give way, men," shouted Mr Austin in a voice which made the leafy
archway ring again. "Steer straight for the crocodile, Tom; plump the
boat right on him; and, bow-oar, lay in and stand by to prod the fellow
with your boat-hook. Drive it into him under the arm-pit if you can;
that, I believe, is his most vulnerable part."
Animated by the first lieutenant's evident excitement, the men dashed
their oars into the water, and, with a tug which made the stout ash
staves buckle like fishing-rods, sent the boat forward with a rush.
The alligator--or crocodile, whichever he happened to be--was, however,
in the meantime, getting the best of the struggle, dragging the antelope
steadily ahead into deeper water every instant, in spite of the
beautiful creature's desperate resistance. We were only a few seconds
in reaching the scene of the conflict, yet during that brief period the
buck had been dragged forward until the water was up to his belly.
"Hold water! back hard of all!" cried Mr Austin, standing up in the
stern-sheets, musket in hand, as we ranged up alongside the frantic
deer. "Now give it him with your boat-hook; drive it well home into
him. That's your sort, Ben; another like that, and he _must_ let go.
Well struck! now another--"
Bang!
The crocodile had suddenly released his hold upon the antelope; and the
creature no sooner felt itself free than it wheeled round, and, on three
legs--the fourth was broken above the knee-joint, or probably _bitten_
in two--made a gallant dash for the shore. But our first lieutenant was
quite prepared for such a movement, had anticipated it, in fact, and the
buck had barely emerged from the water when he was cleverly dropped by a
bullet from Mr Austin's musket. The boat was thereupon promptly
beached, the buck's throat cut, and the carcass stowed away in the
stern-sheets, which it pretty completely filled. We were just about to
shove off again when the first lieutenant caught sight of a banana-tree,
with the fruit just in right condition for cutting; so we added to our
spoils three huge bunches of bananas, each as much as a man could
conveniently carry.
The deepening shadows now warned us that the sun was sinking low; so we
shoved off and made the best of our way back to the river. When we
reached it we found that there was a small drain of the flood-tide still
making, and, the land-breeze not yet having sprung up, Mr Austin
determined to push yet a little higher up the river. The boat's head
was accordingly pointed to the eastward, and, four miles further on, we
hit upon another opening, into which we at once made our way.
We had no sooner entered this creek, however, than we found that, like
the first we had visited, it forked into two, one branch of which
trended to the south-west and the other in a south-easterly direction.
We chose the latter, and soon found ourselves pulling along a channel
very similar to the last one we had explored, except that, in the
present instance, the first of a chain of hills, stretching away to the
eastward, lay at no great distance ahead of us. A pull of a couple of
miles brought us to a bend in the stream; and in a few minutes
afterwards we found ourselves sweeping along close to the base of the
hills, in a channel about a quarter of a mile wide and with from three
to four and a half fathoms of water under us. Twenty minutes later the
channel again divided, one branch continuing on in an easterly
direction, whilst the other--which varied from a half to three-quarters
of a mile in width--branched off abruptly to the northward and westward.
Mr Austin chose this channel, suspecting that it would lead into the
river again, a suspicion which another quarter of an hour proved
correct.
The sun was by this time within half an hour of setting, and Shark
Point--or rather the tops of the mangroves growing upon it--lay
stretched along the horizon a good eleven miles off, so it was high time
to see about returning. But the tide had by this time turned and was
running out pretty strongly in mid-channel; the land-breeze also had
sprung up, and, though where we were, close inshore, we did not feel
very much of it, was swaying the tops of the more lofty trees in a way
which I am sure must have gladdened the hearts of the boat's crew; so
the oars were laid in, the mast stepped, and the lug hoisted, and in
another ten minutes we were bowling down stream--what with the current
and the breeze, both of which we got in their full strength as soon as
we had hauled a little further out from the bank--at the rate of a good
honest ten knots per hour.
The sun went down in a bewildering blaze of purple and crimson and gold
when we were within five miles of Shark Point; and, ten minutes
afterwards, night--the glorious night of the tropics--was upon us in all
its loveliness. The heavens were destitute of cloud--save a low bank
down on the western horizon--and the soft velvety blue-black of the sky
was literally powdered with countless millions of glittering gems. I do
not remember that I ever before or since saw so many of the smaller
stars; and as for the larger stars and the planets, they shone down upon
us with an effulgence which caused them to be reflected in long
shimmering lines of golden light upon the turbid water.
Presently the boat's lug-sail, which spread above and before us like a
great blot of ghostly grey against the starlit sky, began perceptibly to
pale and brighten until it stood out clear and distinct, bathed in
richest primrose light, with the shadow of the mast drawn across it in
ebony-black. Striking the top of the sail first, the light swept
gradually down; and in less than a minute the whole of the boat, with
the crew and ourselves, were completely bathed in it. I looked behind
me to ascertain the cause of this sudden glorification, and, behold!
there was the moon sweeping magnificently into view above the distant
tree-tops, her full orb magnified to three or four times its usual
dimensions and painted a glorious ruddy orange by the haze which began
to rise from the bosom of the river. Under the magic effect of the
moonlight the noble river, with its background of trees and bush rising
dim and ghostly above the wreathing mist and its swift-flowing waters
shimmering in the golden radiance, presented a picture the dream-like
beauty of which words are wholly inadequate to describe. But I am
willing to confess that my admiration lost a great deal of its ardour
when Mr Austin informed me that the mist which imparted so subtle a
charm to the scene was but the forerunner of the deadly miasmatic fog
which makes the Congo so fatal a river to Europeans; and I was by no
means sorry when we found ourselves, three-quarters of an hour later,
once more in safety alongside the _Daphne_, having succeeded in making
good our escape before the pestilential fog overtook us. Our prizes,
the buck and the bananas, were cordially welcomed on board the old
barkie; the bananas being carefully suspended from the spanker-boom to
ripen at their leisure, whilst the buck was handed over to the butcher
to be operated upon forthwith, so far at least as the flaying was
concerned; and on the morrow all hands, fore and aft, enjoyed the
unwonted luxury of venison for dinner.
Mr Austin having duly reported to Captain Vernon that the river was
just then free of shipping, we hove up the anchor that same evening, at
the end of the second dog-watch, and stood off from the land all night
under easy canvas.