104 VI. LUMBERMEN AND RAFTSMEN 
the crew sell some of the good logs in the raft to other 
negroes, and replace them with less valuable ones of 
exactly the same sizes, putting the firm’s trade mark 
upon these with deceptive accuracy. These inferior 
pieces that have been thrown away in the forest have 
been lying in dozens ever since the last high water, 
either on the sandbanks or in the little bays ©n the 
river banks, and there are said to be villages which 
keep a big store of them of all possible sizes. The good 
timber which has been taken from the raft is later made 
unrecognisable, and is sold over again to a white man. 
Other reasons, too, the white man has for anxiety 
about his raft on its way down. In so many days the 
ship which is to take the timber will be at Cape Lopez, 
and the rafts have till then to come in : the crew have 
been promised a handsome bonus if they arrive in good 
time. But if the tomtom is sounded in a river-bank 
village as they pass, they may succumb to the tempta- 
tion to moor the raft and join in the festivities — for two, 
four, six days ! Meanwhile the ship waits at Cape 
Lopez and the trader must pay for the delay a fine 
which turns his hoped-for profitable stroke of business 
into a serious loss. 
The 200 miles (350 kilometres) from Lambarene 
to Cape Lopez usually take such a raft fourteen days. 
The, at first, comparatively quick rate of progress 
slows down towards the end, for about fifty miles from 
the river mouth the tide makes itself felt in the river. 
For this reason, too, the river water can no longer be 
drunk, and as there are no springs within reach, the 
canoe which is attached to the raft is filled in good time 
with fresh water. From now on progress can be made 
only with the ebb tide, and when the flood tide^sets^ in 
