STEAMER AND LAUNCH TO HOORIE CREEK. 141 



reasonable argument, explaining where they were going and 

 the importance of an early start and appealing to all that was 

 noble and estimable, emphasizing everything with a choice 

 selection of expletives combined with physical force. Finally 

 after pushing and prodding the ill-fated cow they succeeded 

 in half shoving, half throwing it into the boat. After many 

 struggles the loudly indignant hog followed. When at last 

 the donkey had been safely embarked we wondered if that 

 little craft would ever reach its destination, with so heavy and 

 protesting a load : when to our surprise the big black, who had 

 been most vociferous and active in the recent melee, wiped 

 his dripping forehead and stood calling "Possengers! Pos- 

 sengers! all aboad"! with as grand an air as though he 

 were the chief steward on a great ocean liner. The "pos- 

 sengers" proved to be half a dozen buxom negresses, who 

 with many a coy glance and feminine shriek of terror 

 allowed the big black proprietor to help them from the dock 

 to the boat, now rocking violently beneath the restless feet 

 of the animals. 



Finally tin- ballyhoo moved slowly up stream, bound for a 

 distant mine in the far interior, and another boat laden with 

 bananas followed. An Indian paddled swiftly past in his 

 wood-skin. Then darkness fell as suddenly as the dropping 

 of a stage curtain; and we turned away from the river drama 

 back to our life on board the " Mazaruni." 



While awaiting the dinner bell we slung our hammocks 

 along the deck, that through the meal we might know that 

 they were swinging gently in the velvet night air, all ready for 

 our comfortably tired selves. 



The night was clear and the blacks worked for several 

 hours in the moonlight, unloading cargo. Not a mosquito 

 came to mar the beauty of the night. Indeed the natives said 

 they were never troublesome here at Mount Everard. In our 

 hammocks as we rocked to sleep we thought drowsily of the 



