THE CANOE ADRIFT

They passed in time the rocks that guard Madeira, the green bay of
Funchal, the peak of Teneriffe, and then the ship turned on its heel
to the West Coast, and, while yet a thousand miles away, was
welcomed by two messengers--a shrike and a hawk-moth, who had sailed
along some upper current of air with red sand from the Sahara to
filter down at last on to a firm resting-place.

They went away down into the Gulf of Guinea, and with many a call by
the way to discharge cargo, approached the mouth of the Congo,
whose flood gave a tawny colour to the sea. So far they had seen
nothing but the squalid fringe of the Continent, and the damp heat
had steamed them and tried them, but the young explorers had not
lost the fine edge of their imagination. They knew that hundreds of
miles back in the unexplored heart of the land there were secrets to
be unraveled, and though they shed their warmer clothing, they
retained their ardour. The river somewhere in its far reaches held
for them, and them alone, new forms of life--the grandfather of all
the crocodiles, a mammoth hippo; and somewhere in the forest was
some huge gorilla waiting to offer them battle. Moreover, were these
not the gates of the Place of Rest?

"Surely," said Compton, as they steamed slowly into the night off
the mouth of the great river, "thy slave is not cast down because
the black children of the mud-house at our last calling-place did
mock us with their mouths, and the man, their father, wore the silk
hat and frock-coat of civilization?"