Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo, vol 1 | Page 9

off, and the distance from the "authorities" is enough for
comfort. Follow Comba (Komba) and Tom Case, the latter called after
Case Glass, a scion of the Glasses, who was preferred as captain's
"tradesman" by Captain Vidal, R.N., in 1827, because he had "two

virtues which rarely fall to the lot of savages, namely, a mild, quiet
manner, and a low tone of voice when speaking." Tom Qua Ben, justly
proud of the "laced coat of a mail coach guard," was chosen by Captain
Boteler, R.N. The list concludes with Butabeya, James Town, and
Mpira.
These villages are not built street-wise after Mpongwe fashion. They
are scatters of shabby mat-huts, abandoned after every freeman's death;
and they hardly emerge from the luxuriant undergrowth of manioc and
banana, sensitive plant and physic nut (Jatropha Curcas), clustering
round a palm here and there. Often they are made to look extra mean by
a noble "cottonwood," or Bombax (Pentandrium), standing on its
stalwart braces like an old sea-dog with parted legs; extending its roots
over a square acre of soil, shedding filmy shade upon the surrounding
underwood, and at all times ready, like a certain chestnut, to shelter a
hundred horses.
Between the Plateau and Santa Clara, beginning some two miles below
the former, are those hated and hating rivals, Louis Town, Qua Ben,
and Prince Krinje, the French settlements. The latter is named after a
venerable villain who took in every white man with whom he had
dealings, till the new colony abolished that exclusive agency, that
monopoly so sacred in negro eyes, which here corresponded with the
Abbánat of the Somal. Mr. Wilson (p. 252) recounts with zest a notable
trick played by this "little, old, grey-headed, humpback man" upon
Captain Bouët-Willaumez, and Mr. W. Winwood Reade (chap, xi.) has
ably dramatized "Krinji, King George and the Commandant." On
another occasion, the whole population of the Gaboon was compelled
by a French man-o-war to pay "Prince Cringy's" debts, and he fell into
disfavour only when he attempted to wreck a frigate by way of turning
an honest penny.
But soon we had something to think of besides the view. The
tumultuous assemblage of dark, dense clouds, resting upon the
river-surface in our rear, formed line or rather lines, step upon step, and
tier on tier. While the sun shone treacherously gay, a dismal livid
gloom palled the eastern sky, descending to the watery horizon; and the

estuary, beneath the sable hangings which began to depend from the
cloud canopy, gleamed with a ghastly whitish green. Distant thunders
rumbled and muttered, and flashes of the broadest sheets inclosed fork
and chain lightning; the lift-fire zigzagged in tangled skeins here of
chalk-white threads, there of violet wires, to the surface of earth and
sea. Presently nimbus-step, tier and canopy, gradually breaking up,
formed a low arch regular as the Bifröst bridge which Odin treads,
spanning a space between the horizon, ninety degrees broad and more.
The sharply cut soffit, which was thrown out in darkest relief by the
dim and sallow light of the underlying sky, waxed pendent and ragged,
as though broken by a torrent of storm. What is technically called the
"ox-eye," the "egg of the tornado," appeared in a fragment of space,
glistening below the gloomy rain-arch. The wind ceased to blow; every
sound was hushed as though Nature were nerving herself, silent for the
throe, and our looks said, "In five minutes it will be down upon us."
And now it comes. A cold blast smelling of rain, and a few drops or
rather splashes, big as gooseberries and striking with a blow, are
followed by a howling squall, sharp and sudden puffs, pulsations and
gusts; at length a steady gush like a rush of steam issues from that
awful arch, which, after darkening the heavens like an eclipse,
collapses in fragmentary torrents of blinding rain. In the midst of the
spoon-drift we see, or we think we see, "La Junon" gliding like a
phantom-ship towards the river mouth. The lightning seems to work its
way into our eyes, the air-shaking thunder rolls and roars around our
very ears; the oars are taken in utterly useless, the storm-wind sweeps
the boat before it at full speed as though it had been a bit of straw.
Selim and I sat with a large mackintosh sheet over our hunched backs,
thus offering a breakwater to the waves; happily for us, the
billow-heads were partly cut off and carried away bodily by the raging
wind, and the opened fountains of the firmament beat down the
breakers before they could grow to their full growth. Otherwise we
were lost men; the southern shore was still two miles distant, and, as it
was, the danger was not despicable. These tornadoes are harmless
enough to a cruiser,