Astern, It Has A Streak Of Frosted Silver Let Into It By
The Move's Screw.
Just about six o'clock, we run up to the Fallaba,
the Move's predecessor in working the Ogowe, now a hulk, used as a
depot by Hatton and Cookson.
She is anchored at the entrance of a
creek that runs through to the Fernan Vaz; some say it is six hours'
run, others that it is eight hours for a canoe; all agree that there
are plenty of mosquitoes.
The Fallaba looks grimly picturesque, and about the last spot in
which a person of a nervous disposition would care to spend the
night. One half of her deck is dedicated to fuel logs, on the other
half are plank stores for the goods, and a room for the black sub-
trader in charge of them. I know that there must be scorpions which
come out of those logs and stroll into the living room, and goodness
only knows what one might not fancy would come up the creek or rise
out of the floating grass, or the limitless-looking forest. I am
told she was a fine steamer in her day, but those who had charge of
her did not make allowances for the very rapid rotting action of the
Ogowe water, so her hull rusted through before her engines were a
quarter worn out; and there was nothing to be done with her then,
but put a lot of concrete in, and make her a depot, in which state
of life she is very useful, for during the height of the dry season,
the Move cannot get through the creek to supply the firm's Fernan
Vaz factories.
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