The Neihart herald. [volume] (Neihart, Mont.) 1890-1901, 1900-03-03
DICK RODNEY;
Or. The Adventures of
An Eton Boy.
I by JAMES RANT.
ssssee
by JAMES GRANT.

away and drowned; but when Gay
broke, and the storm abated a little,
the captain, six men and l got ashore
in the long boat, just as the poor Ar
row began to break up, for we could
see the waves beating into her and
rending asunder the decks, the inner
and outer sheathing, as If they couldn't
scatter the cargo fast enough far and
wide.
We'll, there we were, shipwrecked
in a wild place on the west coast of
Africa, at a part of the Congo river
where the mangrove trees grow into
the water, and have their lower
branches covered with oysters and bar
nacles.
1--WE could see high blue hills in the
distance when the sun came up from
the zane swamps and the wild woods
which bordered the river, and we sat
on the beach for a while looking rue
fully at the wreck, of which little now
remained but a few timbers, till the
increase of the morning heat drove us
for shelter INTO a grove Of oil-palms,
and there, Master Rodney, we found
tulips, lilies and hyacinths growing
wild, and six times larger than you
ever saw in England.
"Some of our men proposed that we
should repair the longboat-she was
partly stove in-and put to sea, or
creep in along the coast until we were
picked up. We were without carpen-
ter's tools; but the captain had a case
of surgical instruments, and the first
use We made of the saw was to cut into
halves an iron buoy which had fioated
ashore from the wreck.
THUS we had two kettles, in which
we boiled some seabirds and their
eggs, and made a mess whereupon we
breakfasted. Exhausted by the late
storm, the birds were easily knocked
down by stones as they sat with droop-
ing wings upon the rocks neal the sea;
but scarcely was our miserable meal
over when we heard loud yells, and,
attracted by the smoke of u fire,
down came a whole gang of ugly dar-
kies, all Mussolongos, wild and naked,
with rings or fshbones in their long
BdIS dlu d . - - 'NN
war-paint and shouting like madmen
as they brandished their muskets and
spears.
They fired a volley, which stretched
on the earth the poor captain and all
my shipmates, dead or dying. The lat
ter they soon dispatched with their
knives and spears, and left them to be
oo+oa NV miIl onirna1 10. hI1t on finding
that | had escaped their bullets, they
supposed that their fetish had pro-
tected me, and so for a time I was safe.
For a whole week / was forced to
help these savages in the work Of TAX
ing all that remained of the wreck to
pieces, though hundreds came from
the interior, and they wrought hard,
some men using even their filed teeth
to get all the iron n copper bolts,
which they priced more than the car
go, sails or spars, as they could fash
ion them into weapons and the heads
of spears and arrows. But with every
thing they could lay their dingy hands
upon, myself included, they made of
inland, just as a vessel, which proved
W Ut u hlh5 . Ohlp SohlC iOuLh IL
Sharks Nose, and thus, with help
protection and liberty at hand, I was
more than ever a prisoner.
Il was in very low spirits, you may
be sure, fearing they only intended tc
fatten me up, like a Stalled Ok, or g
turtle in a tub, before cooking and
eating me, or making me a sacrifice to
$1,000 ;l1l ooruod re noo1. PAr manu-
times I saw the whole 'tarnal tribe or
their knees before the fgure-head o.
the Arrow, which had been washed
ashore, and was pronounced to be 6
fetish.
For three days we travelled among
deep and slimy-green swamps, thick
wild woods and immense pathles!
canebrakes, where in an hour I saw
more tree leopards and zebras, howl
ing jackals and antelopes, GRIMM,
monkeys and chattering paroquets
than ever were seen in all the show
at Greenwich fair, till we arrived at
kraal of a hundred huts, for all tn
world like pigsties, surrounded by
high palisade of bamboos, and situate'
l in a forest of palms.
81 was now the slave of a chief
whose rigging was rather queer, for /
> consisted only of a deep fringe, or kilt
! of unplaited grass, a necklace of lion
teeth and fishbones, and a cap of leop
, ards skin, on which lowered a plum
} of feathers, above a row Of human
{ teeth and sea shells.
| Being r~ope-ended by an inch-and
a-half colt-aye, or keelhauled once
' day from the foreyardarm-were joke
when compared to all this Africa,
!. niger made me undergo, in p~estilen
: swamps, where the very air choked me
p. as if l had been in a ship with a fou
: hold, for the slime in these canebrake
was as thick as tar and black as oil
bilge-water.
One day he was soothing his e1
= element by beating me with a heav
= bamboo, till my back and arms wer
covered with blood. Close by were
4 whole gang of the tribe squatted III
+ der a palm tree, smoking bubbles
= bubbles made out of nut shells, lool
p ing on and laughing at the torture
q Vas undergoing; but in the midst {
q their sport we heard a roar that mad
our hearts tremble, and all ready I
II scamper off.
e There was a mighty crashing an
e swaying of the wild canes in the az
d jacent brake, and then a great, square