ABSTRACT
I forget whether it was here or on the way to New Benin that an accident, not uncommon in this region, befell us, which will serve to show more plainly what a mangrove swamp is like. We were swinging slowly round a bend when, and unfortunately, a yellow rush of tide-water was going that way in a hurry too. The helm was jammed hard over, but a revolving swirl caught the bows, canted them against the rudder, and the telegraph clanged sharply. The vessel trembled as her engines pounded hard astern, but it was too late. The way of a 4000-ton steamer cannot be checked in a moment,
and a warning hail, "Aft with you, every man," came down from the lofty bridge. There was a rush of feet along the deck as negro and white man fled aft for their lives, and they were just in time. The wall of dingy mangroves seemed to be flying towards the big white-painted forecastlehead, and next moment, with a crash of splintering timber, the iron bows plunged right into the forest. The mangroves went down before them, groaning and creaking in a heap of sap-filled fragments; crawling roots rose up and rasped the rusty sides; while, resistlessly forging ahead, the steamer buried perhaps 30 feet of her length in the quagmire, for she was built light-draughted and with a cut-away forefoot. Then the whirl of the reversed propeller made itself felt, and as she came slowly to a standstill the exhalations of the mud, when the wash seethed among it, made one gasp fOF breath. Nor was this the worst. Red mangroveflies, whose bite leaves a wound which often remains unhealed for days, venomous spiders, and legions of ants, shaken from the branches ripped off by shroud and stay which strewed the deck, commenced to stir themselves in search of prey, and the seamen fought them with squeejee and mop until the spouting hose swept them through the scuppers. Fortunately the tide was rising, and soon the Kinyema backed off again, and, with the loss of much paint and sundry awnings ripped to pieces, resumed her
journey. A.t several sharp bends among the Niger waterways you may see great gaps in the dingy foliage where steamers have thus rammed the forest.
