Now the coast trended more to the south. The shores became covered with masses of a peculiar tree that grows in mud banks covered by shallow water in those parts. Whereas in most trees the roots join to form the trunk below ground, in this plant they join to form the trunk above the water. The tree thus stands on long, stilt-like roots, which spread out and down into the water like the legs of a spider. Behind these trees we caught glimpses of wooded plains.
The climate, too, changed. The strong northeaster, which had brought us so far so fast, dwindled away to light, variable airs. The sky was often overcast. Sometimes a flat calm prevailed, and the Astra towed the Jezebel. The men found rowing hard in the humid heat; sweat ran off them in rivers. Hence our drinking water dwindled fast, and what was left became scummy and foul. At night we durst not anchor too close to shore, because swarms of mosquitoes murdered our sleep.
Since the coast was now more variable, we proceeded more slowly to give the Astra time to explore. Thus we presently found an immense bay, surrounded by reedy marshes. Crocodiles sprawled by the scores on sand bars, while river horses snorted and splashed in the shallows.
A long bar blocked the entrance to this bay, but the Astra found a channel through it. We landed on a small island, about six stadia in length. While we were exploring, Hagnon the mate rushed up to me, crying:
"Come, Captain! Here's something you'll want to see!"
He had found a cluster of ruins—the lower walls of small, square houses of mud brick. They were so overgrown and so destroyed by time and weather that little more than then-ground plans could be discerned. But I recalled my readings in Alexandria.
"I think," I said, "that we have found the last outpost of Hanno the Carthaginian. This isle must be his Kernê."
"Who was he?" asked Hagnon.
I told him: "Two or three hundred years ago, Carthage sent an expedition down this coast, over the route we have been following, under an admiral named Hanno. They halted at a place they called Kernê, on an island in a bay, and set up a trading post They also explored the neighborhood before returning home."
"What became of the people left to man the post?"
"I don't know, but my guess is that this place is so far from civilization, and it's so difficult to beat one's way back to the Pillars against wind and current that the outpost was soon abandoned."
The Astra explored the bay and found the mouth of a great river coming down from the interior. But the water was too brackish for our use, and I did not want to take the time to send the Astra upstream far enough to find sweet water. Since, save for the Phoenician ruins, there seemed to be no men hereabouts, we proceeded on our way.
Further down the coast however, we saw signs of human life: a blue thread of smoke ascending from the forest; a point of light or a sound of drumming at night; a small boat drawn up on the shore. Between the heavy surf and the wall of stilt trees, though, the coast afforded few good landing places.
Now the coast trended more and more to the east. Optimists among the crew speculated that we had already reached the southernmost extremity of Africa. Having studied Herod-otos' account of the voyage of Necho's Phoenicians, I was sure that the continent extended much further south than this. The Phoenicians had gone well south of the equator, which we, had not even reached as yet.
A few days after leaving Kernê, we met two fishing boats, each made from a hollowed-out tree trunk. They fled and vanished into the wall of stilt trees. Since our need for fresh water was acute, I ordered Hagnon to follow them with the galley. When the Astra pursued the boats, she found a channel big enough for the Jezebel. Beyond lay a bay and the mouth of another river.
We filed into the bay under oars. On the far shore stood a cluster of small round huts, with fishing boats drawn up nearby. The two boats that we followed were paddled frantically up to this landing. The paddlers leaped out, splashed ashore, and ran shouting up the slope to the village. In a few heartbeats, the villagers boiled out of their huts and fled into the forest.
Ahead of the Jezebel, the Astra gave a lurch. Hagnon rushed to the poop deck and shouted back at me:
"Beware! There's a rock or something there!"
The roundship crept ahead slowly, sounding with a pole, and thus avoided the obstacle that the Astra had brushed. We anchored near the deserted village. Hagnon, voluble with excuses, came aboard looking crestfallen. "... I'll swear I was taking soundings every fathom. That stupid Spaniard must have skipped one ..."
"You mean, you were all so busy watching the blacks running into the bush that you forgot about rocks and shoals," I said. "Well, it's time the bottoms were inspected anyway. Is the Astra leaking?"
"I don't think so. Maybe it was only a log."
"If the natives are friendly and we can find a decent beach, well ground the ships at high tide," I said. "Tell the boys to lower the dinghy."
"Hadn't you better send someone else ashore first, Captain? We can't risk losing you—"
"Oh, to the crows with that! I want to see this village at first hand."
I went ashore with a couple of sailors. We found nobody in the village; even the dogs had run away with their owners. I left several strings of beads and returned to the Jezebel.
"Now," I told my people, "we shall wait and see."
As I had expected, curiosity at last overcame the fears of the villagers. They came out of hiding, found the beads, and began to quarrel over them. Two men paddled out to where my ships rode at anchor and shouted up to us.
"Sumbo! Mori! Dia!" I cried. "Can any of you understand them?"
Mori, the black whose tribe had been destroyed by cannibals, said that he could make out some of it. "They say, will you give more beads, so every man have one string?"
"What will they give us in return?" I replied. After more talk, Mori reported:
"Can give a little food. Fish ..." and he added a string of native names.
"That will be fine," I said.
A trade was arranged. The villagers depended heavily on fish, but they also hunted and raised a few simple crops, such as a kind of grain that made a fairly horrid porridge and an underground tuber with a yellow inside and a sweet taste. These blacks were a clan of the Baga tribe, which was spread along this coast They were of medium size and powerful build. Both sexes went completely naked. They were very primitive, using sharpened stones for spearheads and making their fishhooks from fishbones.
Once their initial fears were overcome, they proved an amiable lot, much given to joking and laughter. They were clean in their persons, bathing at least once a day in the bay despite the danger of crocodiles. But their village, called Gombli, was filthy, with dung and garbage all over.
I feared lest the lusts of my sailors for the Baga women give trouble, but I need not have worried. For a small present, a Baga husband was glad to lend his wife for the night; nor did the wives seem to mind. It would not surprise me if the next generation of Gomblians had lighter skins than their fellow tribesmen.
With Mori as interpreter, I had a long talk one evening with Teita, the headman. Teita wanted to know if we had come down from Heaven. No, I said, but from a place about as distant. We were not, he persisted, the ghosts of his ancestors, come back to haunt him? We were certainly pale enough for ghosts. No, I said, we were men like himself. Doubtless I could have exploited these poor fishermen by claiming that we were gods. But, having seen in India what unchecked superstition can do, I thought it better to avoid the supernatural.