THE VOYAGE -START. 



99 



impossible to keep them together. Each man thinking 

 solely of his own affairs, and disdaining the slightest 

 regard for the wishes, the comfort, or the advantage of 

 his employers, they objected systematically to every 

 article which I had embarked. Kannena had filled the 

 canoes with his and his people's salt, consequently he 

 would not carry even a cartel. Various points settled 

 we hove anchor or rather hauled up the block of granite 

 doing an choral duty, and with the usual hubbub and strife, 

 the orders which every man gives and the advice which 

 no man takes, we paddled in half an hour to a shingly 

 and grassy creek, defended by a sandpit and backed by 

 a few tall massive trees. Opposite and but a few yards 

 distant, rose the desert islet of Bangwe, a quoin-shaped 

 mass of sandstone and red earth, bluff to the north and 

 gradually shelving towards the water at the other 

 extremity : the prolific moisture above and around had 

 covered its upper ledge with a coat of rich thick vege- 

 tation. Landward the country rises above the creek, 

 and upon its earth-waves, which cultivation shares with 

 wild growth, appear a few scattered hamlets. 



Boats generally waste some days at Bangwe Bay, the 

 stage being short enough for the usual scene being en- 

 cored. They load and reload, trim cargo, complete rations, 

 collect crew T s, and take leave of friends and relatives, 

 women, and palm-wine. We pitched a tent and halted 

 in a tornado of wind and rain. Kannena would not 

 move without the present of one of our three goats. 

 At 4 p.m., on the 11th April, the canoes were laden 

 and paddled out to and back from Bangwe islet, when 

 those knowing in such matters pronounced them so 

 heavily weighted as to be unsafe : whereupon, the 

 youth Riza, sorely against my will, was sent back to the 

 Kawele. On that night a furious gale carried away my 



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