Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/169

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mouth of the chief southern affluent of the Ogowé, the Ngunie; it flows in unostentatiously from the E.S.E., a broad, quiet river here with low banks and two islands (Walker's islands) showing just off its entrance. Higher up, it flows through a mountainous country, and at Samba, its furthest navigable point, there is a wonderfully beautiful waterfall, the whole river coming down over a low cliff, surrounded by an amphitheatre of mountains. It takes the Éclaireur two days steaming from the mouth of the Ngunie to Samba, when she can get up; but now, in the height of the long dry season neither she nor the Mové can go because of the sand banks; so Samba is cut off until next October. Hatton and Cookson have factories up at Samba, for it is an outlet for the trade of Achango land in rubber and ivory, a trade worked by the Akele tribe, a powerful, savage and difficult lot to deal with, and just in the same condition, as far as I can learn, as they were when Du Chaillu made his wonderful journeys among them. While I was at Lembarene, waiting for the Éclaireur, a notorious chief descended on a Ngunie sub-factory, and looted it. The wife of the black trading agent made a gallant resistance, her husband was away on a trading expedition, but the chief had her seized and beaten, and thrown into the river. An appeal was made to the Doctor, then Administrator of the Ogowé, a powerful and helpful official, and he soon came up with the little cannonier, taking Mr. Cockshut with him to vindicate the honour of the French flag, under which all factories here are. They, having got to the scene of action, sent a message to the chief to come down and talk the palaver. The chief being a natural-born idiot, came with two of his head men and some retainers. Only he and the head men were allowed into the room, and three or four Senegalese soldiers held the door, while the three white men, the Doctor, the captain of the cannonier and Mr. Cockshut took a black man apiece, and after a fine fight, threw them and bound them. The injured lady was then admitted, and given a Kasanguru with which she returned thanks personally to the chief with all her might, accompanying her operations with verbal commentary on the way he had behaved to her, as any lady would. The chief and his two head men were then