Back to the Coast.

Otago Witness, Issue 2251, 22 April 1897, Page 49

Back to the Coast.

We dined with the chief, but ;t was not the kind of dinner I enjoy. A large wooden pot, coated with excessive grease of many past generations of dinner?, bore a wellhandled mess of fat and dtfeer things. I did not do the meal justice, but to oil the feelings of the king I . partook ulightly. Then I sat beck and listened to the choking, bubbling talk of his majesty — talk that Mansfield understood as if he hsd been born amid it. Mansfield translated much of the king's speech, which all bore the same refrain — that hia majesty was delighted at our visit and wanted to buy guns and other playthings.

So we went on board again and loaded tho dingey with a vast quantity of primitive shooting-irons, which brightened the eye of the restless chief, or monarch, whichever he ba by grace of hiß people. s or the guns he gave ua ivory, fine in quality and very valuable ; for ammunition more ivory, and again ivory in return for a battered silk " topper " that hailed from London. The king thought a great deal of the guns, also of some knives we gave him, but the silk hat was his ideal. I was sorry to see him get it, for it turned a fairly dignified savage monarch into a ridiculous effigy ; bat it was no business of mine.

Mansfield, who did not want to be hard on the king, threw into the bargain a .box or two of ornaments and coloured prints, which also seemed rather out 'of place. After the trade, our chief showed us his wives, seven of them. They were partly dressed, and more than partly not, in rough cloth, and they were not handsome. The monarch ordered them about in a curb and ready manner, by which I saw that they stood in the same position in his estimation as the cattle in his majesty's kraal.

The population escorted us to the waterside, and we went aboard amid a hurricane of entreaties to return as soon as we would with more guns. Steaming heatedly down river, we struck

THE SAVAiMP REGION AFRESH,

and another man took to his berth. One of the earlier fever patienta died before the day wpp through. We sewed him into a sack in company with a killick stone, and d>opped him overside with such leme funeral service as we could organise. By the coming of the sun we bad loat another man, and we wearily saw the foul green scum 'part . and let him through as he followed the first. These two men had not bsen seasoned to swamp work. They were freeh from the higher grounds to the northward. To come out of sach a creek untouched a man must first know the long, dull ache and thumping temples which are part of the fev^r caught in milder places, and our creek victims had no knowledge of such a thing. So they died, and the skipper cursed, for we felt their loss later.

IN. The Creek op Assegais.

On we crawled sullenly towards the creek's mouth ; bat it was a dnU voyage, except for distant colour. Another man went to his berth raviDg with the ghastly swampfever, and we' watched anxiously for the open sea. Two men overside and two in the bunks gave us much to do ; there was short time for tbonght or weighing of chances. We gave the little vessel all she could carry ; but at the best she was a paceless boat. The f assy screw churned the green water into a yellow-tipped pulp ; but the blunt bows nosed idly aloDg through the current, and we chafed uneasily till the -welcome muddy sea dawned on us again. At least the friendly coffeecoloured waters would-be lest? pestilential than the deadly green river. So we turned her head northwards, and in 24 hours the stricken men were on the road to health. But they were old hands, and feared little in the breed of fevers.

We held off till our patients were in working order, and turned up another river, les3 fenny than the first, but with rush-curtained banks and small, thin copses of brushwood at short distances apart. Before we had clawed a mile up through the soum a silvery flash ripped from the brushwood. It was a tbin-bladed spear, the narrow assegai of the east tribes, and it bounced the iron

with a cl

funnel with a cheery ring 3in behind my back. The skipper swore curtly and under his breath. ' "If I know the creeks," he said sulkily, after a little pause, " that means we will not open the head of this river. Some Portuguese froth have been here and ill-treated my tribe. Them Portuguese will never learn business." A little higher up a twin puff of white smoke leapt from the cover of a thorn bush, and a' bullet sank into the f-cuttle-butt with a sullen " plop." "I thought so," growled Mansfield. "They are thoroughly atirred up. We'll go and see, anyway." During the next hour a dczan bullets and assegais left the banks to investigate us; but we kept in mid-river, and the range was too long to admit of great accuracy. Crack! phit! ssu'g the bullets at restless intervals, and I picked up one or two ragged j lumps of lead that had struck the smokestack. The assegais chiefly fell short. Presently, a piece of hammered scrap-iron from some ancient musket clipped away the skipper's fingtr from the knuckle. I thought he would go out of his mind with fury. Of a truth it was the most galling trial that ever fell to me, that helpless hour of targetpulling, with nothing to hit back at. By-and-bye a pellet of iron dug a little channel in my left arm—harmles?, but painful. In defiance of the skipper's orders, I fired back at the Bmoke-spirfc, to the great annoyance of Mans- [ field. 1 " It's no good returning fire," he snapped. irritably; •• you'll hit nothing. We can't trade hero again, that's aure, and the river narrows round the bend. They can pick us off there as they like, aud they won't trade, neither, not they. We'll turn back now. If you see a nigger blaze at him all you know, I but don't fire at smoke-puff». 'Bout &he ! goes! " "You mean to report it, ch—firirg on the j British fkg?" I queried. " Not me !" he said grimly; " niggers in the bQd of a fevercreek is contrajrey f but th6y pay, sftv-they pay. Do you think I haven't I enough ivoiy out of 'em to make up for that I finger sttfnip 1 Does it occur to you I want, a gunboat\jioßing round my customers that is peaceful, and making matters worse ?Do I want the whole earth round here ? And who will find one creek where it's wanted but me and those of my trade ? " O£ a truth, Mansfield is a rover under the I bine ensign, and a man of business. : We left our troubled creek and shot southwards with the acouring currents outside, Ten days later I was back in Natal, fighting the difference between ivory and flintlock guns. ' But that is no part of my business. — Answers.

So close were