Stanley's Adventures in the Wilds of Africa: A Graphic Account of the Several Expeditions of Henry M. Stanley into the Heart of the Dark ContinentHeadley, Joel Tyler
History
Stanley's Adventures in the Wilds of Africa: A Graphic Account of the Several Expeditions of Henry M. Stanley into the Heart of the Dark Continent
Headley, Joel Tyler
Africa, Central -- Description and travel; Stanley, Henry M. (Henry Morton), 1841-1904
Sending back the breakfast as he had promised, he paid a visit to the
kings of Zinga. Becoming anxious about the boats, as this was the first
time he had ever permitted any one but himself to lead the way in any
dangerous part of the river, he about three o'clock took his glass and
going to the shore began to look up the river that came tearing out of
the mountain like a wild animal and shaking the shores with its loud
thunder. Suddenly he saw something black tossing amid the turbulent
water. Scanning it closely, he saw it was an upturned canoe and to its
sides several men were clinging. He instantly dispatched two chiefs and
ten men to a bend toward which the wreck was drifting. The crew,
however, knowing there was another cataract just below, attempted to
right the boat and save themselves; but, unable to do so, got on the
keel and began to paddle for dear life with their hands toward the
shore. As they got near the far bank, he saw them jump off the boat and
swim for shore. They had hardly reached it when the overturned boat shot
by Stanley like an arrow and with one fierce leap dashed over the brink
of the cataract and disappeared in the foam and tumult below. In a few
minutes a messenger arrived out of breath, saying that eleven men were
in that canoe, only eight of whom were saved--the other three being
drowned, one of whom was Pocoke. Stanley turned fiercely on Uledi, his
coxswain, and demanded how he came to let Pocoke, a lame man, go in the
rescue canoe. "Ah, master," he replied, "we could not help it, he would
not wait. He said, 'since the canoe is going to camp I will go too. I am
hungry and cannot wait any longer. I cannot walk and I do not want you
to carry me, that the natives may all laugh at me. No, I will go with
you;' and refusing to listen to Captain Manwa Sera, who remonstrated
with him, he got in and told us to cast off. We found no trouble in
forcing our way against the back current. We struck the down current,
and when we were near the fall I steered her into the cove to take a
good look at it first. When I had climbed over the rocks and stood over
it, I saw that it was a bad place--that it was useless to expect any
canoe to go over it without capsizing, and I went to the little master
and told him so. He would not believe me, but sent other men to report
on it. They told the same story: that the fall could not be passed by
shooting over it in a canoe. Then he said we were always afraid of a
little water and that we were no men. 'All right,' I said, 'if you say
cast off I am ready. I am not afraid of any water, but if anything
happens my master will be angry with me.' 'Cast off,' the little master
said, 'nothing will happen; am I not here?' You could not have counted
ten, master, before we were all sorry. The cruel water caught us and
tossed and whirled us about and shot us here and shot us there, and the
noise was fearful. Suddenly the little master shouted 'Look out! take
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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