THE CONGO
The boys were now due to receive another surprise. When their taxi drew
up they jumped out, fully expecting to see a wonderful store like those
of New York. Instead they found themselves before a dingy little shop
whose aspect gave them distinct disappointment.
"No," laughed Mr. Wallace as he dismissed the taxi, "it's all right!
Doesn't look up to much but it sends out good stuff."
This was the gunshop and they found it very different inside. Mr.
Wallace had no time to waste in having special guns made, so the clerks
measured the boys' shoulders and arms and that was all there was to it,
for the guns would be slightly altered and sent on board.
Now the party went to the Boma Trading Company's store. Here they found
that the chop-boxes had all gone on board their ship. Mr. Wallace
ordered three Borroughs and Wellcome medicine cases, specially made up
for the West Coast. He also procured two hypodermic syringes and a
small quantity of Pasteur serums.
"We'll probably never need them," he explained, as they left the store,
"but in case our men strike a snake a quick hypodermic is the only thing
to save them. Then we have poisoned arrows to consider also. If we
happened to get into the pigmy country--which I hope we won't--it'll
take a powerful anti-tetanic serum to kill their poisons."
After a lunch they returned to the Boma Company. The lists which Mr.
Wallace had given the clerks had been filled and now each of them was
measured for the clothes and personal equipment. This consumed an hour,
after which they took another taxi and went to a camera supply house.
The boys went into extravagant delight over the small and compact
moving-picture outfit. Burt promptly took charge of this, or rather
promised to take charge, for when the whole outfit had been sealed up it
would be sent down to the steamer like the other supplies.
"Tell you what," he cried, "we'll get some great little old pictures!
You let an elephant chase you, Uncle George, while I get a good view
and Critch shoots him!"
"Don't want much, do you?" laughed his uncle. "Nothing like that for
mine. I'd sooner have an elephant after me, at that, than a big buffalo.
That's the most dangerous animal we'll find in Africa."
"How 'bout rhinoceros?" challenged Critch.
"All poppycock," snorted the explorer. "A rhino can't see ten feet away.
He goes by smell. He'll usually run away unless he's wounded. But a
buffalo doesn't wait to be wounded. You rouse him up out of a
comfortable feeding place and he'll go for you. Takes more than one
bullet to kill him unless you're lucky."
The boys now stocked up with fresh linen for the voyage while Mr.
Wallace looked up his own guns, which he usually stored in London. They
stopped at the Carleton over Sunday and Monday. As Burt's father had
sales offices in London they secured a large touring car without cost
and spent the two days riding about the historic city. There were
various minor details of their outfits to be attended to on Monday and
on Tuesday noon they went aboard the _Benguela_, when she arrived from
Liverpool.
She proved to be a large cargo and passenger boat and was very
comfortably fitted up. They had seen nothing of John Quincy Adams
Washington but Mr. Wallace smilingly assured them that he would show up
in time. Sure enough, when they went up the gangplank the big negro was
waiting with his all-embracing grin.
"Good mornin', sar, good mornin'!" he cried, taking charge of their hand
baggage and assuming a lordly attitude over the stewards. "Very
hauspicious day, sar! John t'ink we 'ave very fine trip, sar!"
And a fine trip they had. There were a dozen other passengers on board.
Most of these were clerks or traders going out to positions at Sierra
Leone or the Gold Coast, with one or two Frenchmen and officials of the
Congo State. When they crossed the Equator there were the usual
ceremonies and horseplay among the sailors, and the boys thoroughly
enjoyed themselves. By the time they left the Gold Coast behind and
headed for Banana Point Burt felt better than he had ever been in his
life and his uncle assured him that he need not worry about the fever.
Finally the long reddish cliffs and grassy up-lands of the Congo coast
drew into sight late on the fifteenth afternoon. The _Benguela_ took a
black pilot aboard and proceeded straight up to the port of Banana. Mr.
Wallace and the boys at once disembarked and interviewed the customs
officials and took a launch up to the capital, Boma. The steamer would
follow them after discharging some cargo.
The next morning Mr. Wallace put on his ribbon of Commander of the
Legion of Honor. The boys were amazed at the respect which this gained
for all of them when they sought an audience with the governor general.
After explaining to him the object of their trip and the length of time
they would be gone, Mr. Wallace arranged to have all the necessary
papers made out and to charter one of the State steamers to take their
outfit up the river.
"I can give you only a small one," said the governor general.
"Unfortunately, there are few at my disposal just now. Stay! You might
arrange with Captain Montenay. He chartered _La Belgique_ two days
since for a similar trip, but surely he'll have plenty of room to
spare."
"Montenay?" repeated Mr. Wallace. "Isn't he the Scotch explorer?"
"Yes!" smiled the governor. "Come to think of it I believe he is at the
palace now." Clapping his hands, he dispatched a gendarme. "If you can
arrange matters with him I will see that your baggage is passed directly
to _La Belgique_ through the customs. You have no liquor, I presume?"
"Half a dozen pint flasks of brandy," replied the explorer and the
governor nodded. It is one of the strictest laws of the Congo that no
liquors shall be brought into the country, save in small personal
amounts. A moment later the gendarme returned with a small, khaki-clad
man. He was very sallow of complexion, had dark hair and eyes, and
carried his left arm awkwardly. When the governor introduced him to the
three Americans his thin face lit up with a quick smile and he gripped
Mr. Wallace's hand impulsively.
"So you're Wallace!" he cried, looking deep into the other's eyes. "Man,
I've been wantin' to meet ye for ten years! I ran across your trail in
China and got within fifty miles o' ye when the Cape to Cairo was
surveyin'. Man, I'm pleased to meet ye!"
"I'm mighty glad to meet you, too," smiled Mr. Wallace. "I've heard a
lot about you, Montenay!"
Mr. Wallace then introduced the boys and suggested that they have a talk
in another room of the palace. Thanking the governor for his assistance
and kindness they followed the gendarme to another room.
"Now, Captain," said Mr. Wallace, "we're going up the Aruwimi after
ivory. We can't get a large boat here and the Governor suggested that
you could take us up on the _Belgique_."
"O' course I can!" exclaimed the small but famous Scotchman. "An' that's
precisely where I'm bound for too. How'd ye guess it?"
"Good!" cried Mr. Wallace. "When do you start up?"
"I was meanin' to go in the mornin'," answered the other, rubbing his
stubbly chin reflectively. "We'll get your stuff out o' the _Benguela_
to-morrow or ma name ain't McAllister Montenay!"
"We'll split expenses on the _Belgique_, of course," declared the
American. "It's mighty good of--"
"None o' that now, none o' that," interrupted Captain Montenay hastily.
"Why, man, I'd give a hundred pound for the benefeet o' your company up
the stream! Ivory, you say?"
"Partly." Mr. Wallace answered the keen questioning look with a nod.
"I'm going up past the Avatiko country to the Makua and down the river
under the French flag. I've chartered a tramp to be waiting at Loanga by
November. Get the idea?"
"Aye!" Montenay threw back his head in a noiseless laugh. "Man, ye're no
fool! I brought down ten tusks two year gone. When I got down to Stanley
Pool the Afrique Concessions jumped me an' laid claim to the lot. The
rank thieves! They had witnesses to swear that I got the ivory in their
land an' before I knew where I was they fined me twenty pound--_an'_ the
ivory! By cripes, they won't monkey twice with McAllister Montenay
though! Well, let's be movin'. It'll be vera tiresome gettin' these
blacks to work."
As they passed a water cooler on their way out the captain paused. The
boys saw him take a bottle from his pocket and pour out a palmful of
white powder into a cigarette paper. This he rolled up and threw into
his mouth, tossing a glass of water after it.
"Quinine," he explained, although he called it "queeneen."
"Pretty big dose, wasn't it?" asked Mr. Wallace.
"'Bout fifty grain," replied the other calmly, to the intense
astonishment of the boys. "Fever gets me bad down here on the coast. By
cripes, ye're a lucky beggar!" he continued as they came in sight of
John standing guard over their valises. "That's your man Washington?
I've heard o' him. They say he's a magneeficent cook."
"Better than that," laughed Mr. Wallace. "He'll take charge of your
blacks and get real work out of 'em. Do you mean what you said about
going up the Aruwimi?"
"Aye." Montenay nodded. "We'll talk that over later. Ye'll be wantin'
yer mosquito nets, so better bring the stuff down to the _Belgique_.
We'll sleep on board her to-night."
As they had stayed at the hotel the night before, the boys had not been
troubled much by the insects. They were much more worried by the
quantities of quinine that Mr. Wallace insisted on their taking. When
Burt had protested at taking ten grains all at once his uncle had
laughed.
"Nonsense! I'm running this trip! Why, it's nothing unusual for men to
take seventy and eighty grains out here. So put it down and shut up or
I'll send you back home!"
They found the _Belgique_ to be a small but comfortable little steamer
manned by a crew of a dozen blacks and a Swiss pilot. The _Benguela_
came up the river that afternoon and the smaller steamer was placed
alongside her. By special arrangement with the customs people the boxes
belonging to Mr. Wallace were slung right out to the deck of _La
Belgique_. Here John was in charge of the blacks and under his
heavy-handed rule the cases were rapidly stowed away.
Mr. Wallace and the boys got out all their personal equipment at once.
The heat was intense and the boys naturally suffered from it greatly at
first, although the two older men did not seem to mind it in the least.
By the next afternoon their loading was completed and the _Belgique_
headed upstream without further delay.
Their five days' trip got the boys inured to the heat somewhat. They
never tired of watching the tropical forest on either bank of the river
and the strange craft that plied around them. Although there were many
other steamers and State launches as well as trading companies' boats,
there was no lack of dugouts and big thirty-foot canoes laden with
merchandise from the trading posts. The two explorers lay back in their
canvas chairs and recounted their experiences in strange lands, while
the boys listened eagerly as they watched their new surroundings.
The water-maker, as John called it, was installed the first day out. The
boys found their cook to be all that Mr. Wallace had stated and more,
while Captain Montenay was so delighted that he laughingly offered John
exorbitant wages to desert the American, but in vain. The _Belgique_
made stops for wood only and after four days they arrived at the
mile-wide mouth of the Aruwimi River.
On the fifth day they arrived at Yambuya, just below the great cataracts
which stopped further navigation. Here the two experienced explorers
unloaded the chop-boxes, tents and other supplies and proceeded to make
arrangements for hiring bearers. This was accomplished through the local
chief with the aid of the government representative, who was an Italian.
Indeed, the boys found that not only were Belgians and French employed
all through the country, but men of every nationality, from "remittance
men" of England to Swiss and Cubans.
After a two days' delay at Yambuya the caravan was formed. It consisted
of one hundred Bantu porters under the directions of a head-chief who
spoke French fairly well, as do many of the natives. Besides the porters
there were tent boys, skinners, gun-bearers and cooks to the number of
thirty. Captain Montenay spoke Bantu to some extent and all the orders
were given by him direct while the river trip was continued.
The expedition started from the other side of the cataracts in five
immense dugout canoes paddled by the porters. For the white men had been
provided a small antiquated launch with which the canoes were easily
able to keep up.
"Well," said Mr. Wallace as they puffed away from the shore, "the real
trip's begun, boys! We'll arrive at Makupa to-morrow and then up to the
Makua!"
"Makupa?" exclaimed Captain Montenay. "Why, that's only a hundred and
fifty miles up! Well, we can talk it over later. John, fill a canvas
tub. I feel the need o' havin' a bath."
And Captain McAllister Montenay's bath was the first indication that the
boys received of the Blind Lion.