M'bo Secured A - Well, I
Don't Exactly Know What To Call It - For My Use.
It was, I fancy,
the remains of the village club-house.
It had a certain amount of
palm-thatch roof and some of its left-hand side left, the rest of
the structure was bare old poles with filaments of palm mat hanging
from them here and there; and really if it hadn't been for the roof
one wouldn't have known whether one was inside or outside it. The
floor was trodden earth and in the middle of it a heap of white ash
and the usual two bush lights, laid down with their burning ends
propped up off the ground with stones, and emitting, as is their
wont, a rather mawkish, but not altogether unpleasant smell, and
volumes of smoke which finds its way out through the thatch, leaving
on the inside of it a rich oily varnish of a bright warm brown
colour. They give a very good light, provided some one keeps an eye
on them and knocks the ash off the end as it burns gray; the bush
lights' idea of being snuffed. Against one of the open-work sides
hung a drum covered with raw hide, and a long hollow bit of tree
trunk, which served as a cupboard for a few small articles. I
gathered in all these details as I sat on one of the hard wood
benches, waiting for my dinner, which Isaac was preparing outside in
the street. The atmosphere of the hut, in spite of its remarkable
advantages in the way of ventilation, was oppressive, for the smell
of the bush lights, my wet clothes, and the natives who crowded into
the hut to look at me, made anything but a pleasant combination.
The people were evidently exceedingly poor; clothes they had very
little of. The two head men had on old French military coats in
rags; but they were quite satisfied with their appearance, and
evidently felt through them in touch with European culture, for they
lectured to the others on the habits and customs of the white man
with great self-confidence and superiority. The majority of the
village had a slight acquaintance already with this interesting
animal, being, I found, Adoomas. They had made a settlement on
Kembe Island some two years or so ago. Then the Fans came and
attacked them, and killed and ate several. The Adoomas left and
fled to the French authority at Njole and remained under its
guarding shadow until the French came up and chastised the Fans and
burnt their village; and the Adoomas - when things had quieted down
again and the Fans had gone off to build themselves a new village
for their burnt one - came back to Kembe Island and their plantain
patch. They had only done this a few months before my arrival and
had not had time to rebuild, hence the dilapidated state of the
village. They are, I am told, a Congo region tribe, whose country
lies south-west of Franceville, and, as I have already said, are the
tribe used by the French authorities to take convoys up and down the
Ogowe to Franceville, more to keep this route open than for
transport purposes; the rapids rendering it impracticable to take
heavy stores this way, and making it a thirty-six days' journey from
Njole with good luck. The practical route is via Loango and
Brazzaville. The Adoomas told us the convoy which had gone up with
the vivacious Government official had had trouble with the rapids
and had spent five days on Kondo Kondo, dragging up the canoes empty
by means of ropes and chains, carrying the cargo that was in them
along on land until they had passed the worst rapid and then
repacking. They added the information that the rapids were at their
worst just now, and entertained us with reminiscences of a poor
young French official who had been drowned in them last year - indeed
they were just as cheering as my white friends. As soon as my
dinner arrived they politely cleared out, and I heard the devout
M'bo holding a service for them, with hymns, in the street, and this
being over they returned to their drum and dance, keeping things up
distinctly late, for it was 11.10 P.M. when we first entered the
village.
While the men were getting their food I mounted guard over our
little possessions, and when they turned up to make things tidy in
my hut, I walked off down to the shore by a path, which we had
elaborately avoided when coming to the village, a very vertically
inclined, slippery little path, but still the one whereby the
natives went up and down to their canoes, which were kept tied up
amongst the rocks. The moon was rising, illumining the sky, but not
yet sending down her light on the foaming, flying Ogowe in its deep
ravine. The scene was divinely lovely; on every side out of the
formless gloom rose the peaks of the Sierra del Cristal. Lomba-
ngawku on the further side of the river surrounded by his companion
peaks, looked his grandest, silhouetted hard against the sky. In
the higher valleys where the dim light shone faintly, one could see
wreaths and clouds of silver-gray mist lying, basking lazily or
rolling to and fro. Olangi seemed to stretch right across the
river, blocking with his great blunt mass all passage; while away to
the N.E. a cone-shaped peak showed conspicuous, which I afterwards
knew as Kangwe. In the darkness round me flitted thousands of fire-
flies and out beyond this pool of utter night flew by unceasingly
the white foam of the rapids; sound there was none save their
thunder. The majesty and beauty of the scene fascinated me, and I
stood leaning with my back against a rock pinnacle watching it. Do
not imagine it gave rise, in what I am pleased to call my mind, to
those complicated, poetical reflections natural beauty seems to
bring out in other people's minds.
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