style="font-size:15px;"> “Yes.”
“Fine lot these government chaps – are they not?” he went on.
He was speaking English with great precision and considerable bitterness.
“It is funny what some people will do for a few francs a month. I wonder what becomes of them when they go inside the country.”
I said that I expected to see that soon.
“So-o-o!” he exclaimed.
He shuffled athwart.
“Don’t be too sure,” he continued. “The other day I took up a man who hanged himself[21] on the road. He was a Swede, too.”
“Hanged himself! Why, in God’s name?” I cried.
He looked out watchfully.
“Who knows? Too much sun for him, or the country perhaps.”
At last the river became wide. A rocky cliff appeared, mounds of turned-up earth by the shore, houses on a hill, others with iron roofs, amongst a waste of excavations. A continuous noise of the rapids above. A lot of people, mostly black and naked, moved about like ants. A jetty projected into the river.
“There’s your Company’s station,” said the Swede.
He pointed to three wooden barrack-like structures on the rocky slope.
“I will send your things up. Four boxes did you say? So. Farewell.”
10
I came upon a boiler in the grass, then found a path up the hill. It turned aside for the boulders, and also for a railway-truck[22]. It was lying there on its back with its wheels in the air. The railway-truck looked dead as the carcass of some animal.
To the left a clump of trees made a shady spot. I blinked, the path was steep. A horn tooted to the right. I saw black people. They were running. A heavy and dull detonation shook the ground. A puff of smoke came out of the cliff, and that was all. No change appeared on the face of the rock. They were building a railway.
I heard a slight clinking behind me. Six black men were toiling up the path. They walked erect and slow. They were balancing small baskets full of earth on their heads. Black rags were wound round their loins. The short ends behind waggled to and fro like tails. I saw every rib, the joints of their limbs were like knots in a rope. Each had an iron collar on his neck. All were connected together with a chain whose bights swung between them. And those bights were rhythmically clinking.
Another report from the cliff. The ship was firing into a continent. These men were not enemies. They were criminals, probably. The outraged law came to them from the sea.
All their meagre breasts panted together. The violently dilated nostrils quivered. The eyes stared stonily uphill. They passed me within six inches, without a glance, with complete, deathlike indifference of unhappy savages. Behind them was a man with a rifle. He had a uniform jacket. He saw a white man on the path, and hoisted his weapon to his shoulder with alacrity. This was simple prudence, white men are so much alike at a distance. He did not know me.
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