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166 At the Back of the Black Man's Mind By R. E. Dennett
and round the circle until, losing his balance, he came bumping up against one or the
other of the boys forming the circle. Some of the boys were very clever at this dance,
and they seemed quite keen on out-dancing one another, and on our part we were much
interested in it, hardly expecting so scientific a display. Finally the Ranger Mockpai, a
powerfully built man, was so moved that he must have a try, so he doffed his red coat
and started spinning, and when he whirled around he shook the earth as he touched it,
now with one foot and then with the other. The excitement was immense, the singing
boisterous, until this ponderous dancer broke loose and cannoned right and left among
the boys, who fell down before him like ninepins; then the dancing came to an end.
We purposed crossing the river OSSEOMO or AWREOMO on the morrow (the 22nd
April, 1903), so we sent a boy on ahead to OKOGBO to say that we were coming and
would cross the river in the morning.
We arrived at the crossing a little before 7 a.m. and met our boy there, who informed us
that the ferryman had left early in the morning to bring up canoes large enough to carry
our party across. As we waited a woman came down the hill from the village above,
bringing some food for our boys. She had innocently taken off her cloth and made a pad
of it to carry the load on her head the more easily, so that there appeared to be
something wanting about her toilet that amused our boys from the city. More women
followed her, some-of whom appeared very angry. We made inquiries, and found that
some scamps among our boys, fearing that there would not be enough food to go round,
had determined to forestall matters, and had run along the road and waylaid the ladies,
and taken what they considered their share of the food. The Ranger Mockpai and the
rest of the boys were annoyed at this, and so the scamps were turned over and given a
dozen with a cane. This and the payment for the food taken pacified the good women,
and so time went on until nearly 9 o'clock. We now became impatient and started
shouting for the canoes, and getting no reply, we fired off a gun-still no reply. At last we
prepared a raft and placed the interpreter and a forest guard upon it and told them to
cross the river and hurry up the ferryman with the canoes. As they had never crossed
the river at this place, and knew nothing of its dangers, they set off quite gaily. It now
being nearly eleven, we decided to breakfast. When half way through our meal the
canoes turned up, and we relieved our pent-up feelings by expressing them as strongly
as we knew how, and would probably have proceeded to further and more strenuous
arguments had not our attention been arrested by the woebegone appearance of our
interpreter and forest guard: they were shivering, and looked half drowned. It appeared
that while trying to negotiate a turning the raft had upset and left them clinging to the
bushes which were growing out of deep swamp, and water where a foothold was an
impossibility. The ferryman's canoes had luckily picked them up. No large canoes had
been obtainable, so that we had to make our way across in the wretchedly small ones
that the ferryman had brought, and as we rushed down with the fierce current, and
were cleverly steered into different branches of a perfect maze of streams, and kept on
ducking our heads to avoid overhanging trees, we began to realise what a foolhardy
thing we had done in sending the two boys off on a clumsy raft, and by the time we
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