The Worst Of These Lay Between Efoua And Egaja, Where
We Struck A Part Of The Range That Was Exposed
To the south-east.
These falls had evidently arisen from the tornados, which from time
to time have hurled down
The gigantic trees whose hold on the
superficial soil over the sheets of hard bed rock was insufficient,
in spite of all the anchors they had out in the shape of roots and
buttresses, and all their rigging in the shape of bush ropes. Down
they had come, crushing and dragging down with them those near them
or bound to them by the great tough climbers.
Getting over these falls was perilous, not to say scratchy work.
One or another member of our party always went through; and precious
uncomfortable going it was, I found, when I tried it in one above
Egaja; ten or twelve feet of crashing creaking timber, and then
flump on to a lot of rotten, wet debris, with more snakes and
centipedes among it than you had any immediate use for, even though
you were a collector; but there you had to stay, while Wiki, who was
a most critical connoisseur, selected from the surrounding forest a
bush-rope that he regarded as the correct remedy for the case, and
then up you were hauled, through the sticks you had turned the wrong
way on your down journey.
The Duke had a bad fall, going twenty feet or so before he found the
rubbish heap; while Fika, who went through with a heavy load on his
back, took us, on one occasion, half an hour to recover; and when we
had just got him to the top, and able to cling on to the upper
sticks, Wiki, who had been superintending operations, slipped
backwards, and went through on his own account. The bush-rope we
had been hauling on was too worn with the load to use again, and we
just hauled Wiki out with the first one we could drag down and cut;
and Wiki, when he came up, said we were reckless, and knew nothing
of bush ropes, which shows how ungrateful an African can be. It
makes the perspiration run down my nose whenever I think of it. The
sun was out that day; we were neatly situated on the Equator, and
the air was semisolid, with the stinking exhalations from the swamps
with which the mountain chain is fringed and intersected; and we
were hot enough without these things, because of the violent
exertion of getting these twelve to thirteen-stone gentlemen up
among us again, and the fine varied exercise of getting over the
fall on our own account.
When we got into the cool forest beyond it was delightful;
particularly if it happened to be one of those lovely stretches of
forest, gloomy down below, but giving hints that far away above us
was a world of bloom and scent and beauty which we saw as much of as
earth-worms in a flower-bed. Here and there the ground was strewn
with great cast blossoms, thick, wax-like, glorious cups of orange
and crimson and pure white, each one of which was in itself a
handful, and which told us that some of the trees around us were
showing a glory of colour to heaven alone. Sprinkled among them
were bunches of pure stephanotis-like flowers, which said that the
gaunt bush-ropes were rubber vines that had burst into flower when
they had seen the sun. These flowers we came across in nearly every
type of forest all the way, for rubber abounds here.
I will weary you no longer now with the different kinds of forest
and only tell you I have let you off several. The natives have
separate names for seven different kinds, and these might, I think,
be easily run up to nine.
A certain sort of friendship soon arose between the Fans and me. We
each recognised that we belonged to that same section of the human
race with whom it is better to drink than to fight. We knew we
would each have killed the other, if sufficient inducement were
offered, and so we took a certain amount of care that the inducement
should not arise. Gray Shirt and Pagan also, their trade friends,
the Fans treated with an independent sort of courtesy; but Silence,
Singlet, the Passenger, and above all Ngouta, they openly did not
care a row of pins for, and I have small doubt that had it not been
for us other three they would have killed and eaten these very
amiable gentlemen with as much compunction as an English sportsman
would kill as many rabbits. They on their part hated the Fan, and
never lost an opportunity of telling me "these Fan be bad man too
much." I must not forget to mention the other member of our party,
a Fan gentleman with the manners of a duke and the habits of a
dustbin. He came with us, quite uninvited by me, and never asked
for any pay; I think he only wanted to see the fun, and drop in for
a fight if there was one going on, and to pick up the pieces
generally. He was evidently a man of some importance from the way
the others treated him; and moreover he had a splendid gun, with a
gorilla skin sheath for its lock, and ornamented all over its stock
with brass nails. His costume consisted of a small piece of dirty
rag round his loins; and whenever we were going through dense
undergrowth, or wading a swamp, he wore that filament tucked up
scandalously short. Whenever we were sitting down in the forest
having one of our nondescript meals, he always sat next to me and
appropriated the tin. Then he would fill his pipe, and turning to
me with the easy grace of aristocracy, would say what may be
translated as "My dear Princess, could you favour me with a
lucifer?"
I used to say, "My dear Duke, charmed, I'm sure," and give him one
ready lit.
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