The Golden Wind

BOOK IX — Bocchus the Mauretanian

Next morning, through a drizzle, I climbed the winding road to King Bocchus' castle. Behind me marched Pronax and Gnouros. At the gate, a squad of wild-looking Moorish soldiers, in vermilion-dyed goatskin mantles and spotted catskin turbans, surrounded me. The instant I said who I was, they swarmed all over me, grabbing my arms and legs and taking away my Indian sword. "El" I cried. "How now?'

"You are fain to see the king, yes?" said the most ruffianly-looking of the lot, whom I took to be the duty officer.

"Yes, but—"

"Then you shall see him. His audience starts any time."

"But why this rough treatment?"

"We hear you are a dangerous man, so we take no chances. Come, now."

Hippalos' work, I thought. They hustled me into the courtyard. After a wait, they took me into the throne room. This was tiny compared to that of the Ptolemies, but a larger room than one finds in most Moorish houses, which are mere hovels. A fire crackled on a hearth in the middle of the floor. The smoke was supposed to go out a hole in the roof but did not.

When my eyes got used to the gloom, not much relieved by smoking, sputtering torches thrust into holes in the wall, I saw the king seated at the far end amid a small crowd of royal kinsmen, officials, and hangers-on. Bocchus of Mauretania (or Maurusia, as some call it) was a man of medium size, somewhat younger than I, wearing a bulky hooded coat against the chill. The hood was pushed back, so that his bald head gleamed in the torchlight. He was clean-shaven and not ill-looking, being no swarthier than the average Spaniard.

"Give me your name and rank," said the usher, another 179

Moor bundled up against the weather. Coughing on the smoke, I told him:

"I am Eudoxos Theonos, of Kyzikos: former polemarch, former military treasurer, and former trierarch of the city of Kyzikos; head of the shipping firm of Theon's sons, of Kyzikos; explorer of the Borysthenes, the Tanais, and other Scythian rivers; author of Description of the Euxine Sea; and inventor of the triangular mainsail. Can you remember all that?"

The usher stumbled but finally got it all out. The king said: "You might have added that you are the only Hellene I ever heard of who spoke Moorish."

"Badly, sire."

"You will doubtless improve with practice. I knew not that I should receive so eminent a visitor. You need not hold him so tightly, men; methinks he will attempt no desperate deed. Let him go."

"But, sire!" said a soldier, "the Indian holy man warned us—"

"I said, let him go!" said Bocchus sharply. "Now, sir, what brings you hither?"

"Two things, O King. First, may it please Your Majesty, I have a tale to tell about the golden wind to India. ..."

I told about the seasonal winds that sweep across the Arabian Sea and my two voyages, omitting my troubles with the Ptolemies. I did, however, say that it was a shame that this dynasty of fat, degenerate schemers should have a monopoly of this trade, and I told of my plan to sail around Africa to India.

"I have just returned from a voyage down the coast," I said, and told of the island I had found off the mouth of the Lixus. "Now, sire, the main limiting factor in these voyages is the amount of supplies one can carry. To improve one's chances of completing so long a voyage, it were wise to set up depots of stores as far along the route as possible. I have discovered two places where such depots can be set up to advantage. One is at the mouth of the Lixus, which, I have ascertained, rises in the Atlas not far south of here. It should not be difficult to open up a regular trade route along the Lixus, to the advantage of Your Majesty's kingdom. The other is that island whereof I have told you, west of the mouth of the Lixus."

I proposed that Bocchus outfit an expedition, on terms like those that Balatar's sons had given me. When I had finished, he said:

"That is very interesting. But what is the other matter, Master Eudoxos?"

"Your Majesty has at his court, I believe, a man who passes himself off as Sri Hari, the Indian holy man."

"What mean you, sir, 'passes himself off as'? Have you reason to doubt he is what he says he is?"

"I have excellent reason, sire. I have known the man for years. He is Hippalos of Corinth, a wandering entertainer, sailor, and adventurer, who sailed with me on my first Indian voyage."

"Assuming that you speak sooth, what would you of him?"

"Know, O King, that he stole my wife and then drove her to her death. I would have justice upon him. To put it shortly, I want his head."

"Indeed?" said King Bocchus. "I think you are he of whom Master Hari has already complained." He spoke to the usher: "Fetch the Indian."

While we waited, I told the king about my Indian project. Then the usher returned with Hippalos, with a bandage on his right wrist and wearing another turban to replace the one he had lost in our fight. He stared down his nose at me with no sign of recognition.

"This man," said the king to Hippalos, "avers that you are no Indian at all, but a Hellene named Hippalos, who has done him wrong. What say you?"

"That is ridiculous, sire," said Hippalos, speaking with a nasal Indian accent. "I have never seen this man before in my life—well, not quite. He it was who yesterday assaulted me in my tent at the Tingite fair. May I beg Your Majesty to requite his attack on your servant as it deserves?"

"So, Master Eudoxos," said the king, "Sri Hari denies your charge. Can you prove what you say? Can you, for instance, produce witnesses who also knew this Hippalos in former days and can identify Hari as the same man?"

"I could, sire; but to bring witnesses hither from other parts of the Inner Sea would require much time and expense. To obviate this delay, may I make another suggestion to Your Majesty? That Master Hippalos and I have it out with swords and shields, to the death."

Bocchus looked pleased. "Now that sounds amusing! How say you, Master Hari?"

Hippalos put his palms together and bowed over them in a perfect imitation of the Indian salute. "O King, live forever. Your Majesty knows that a man who has devoted his life to the search for higher wisdom and cosmic truths could not possibly have spared the time to acquire skill in arms. So any such contest would be a simple execution of your servant."

"He is a coward, that is all," I said. "I am nearly sixty, and he twenty years younger; but he dares not face me."

"The fact is as I have stated," said Hippalos. "I fear Master —what is the name again?—Master Eudoxos has been deceived by a chance resemblance between your servant and this man whom he seeks. Or else his years have robbed him of his wits."

Bocchus scratched his bald head. "You are both plausible wights, gentlemen, and I cannot decide between your claims without further thought You may withdraw. And, oh, Master Eudoxos! Tomorrow I expect my colleague, King Jugurtha of Numidia, to arrive to wed my daughter. There will be a grand feast to which you are bidden. I cannot ask you to stay at the palace, because the Numidians will occupy all the sleeping space; but you are welcome to the festivities—provided that you make no move against Master Hari. I will not have the occasion spoilt by brawls. Do you promise?"

"I promise, sire," I said.

The Numidians are a branch of the Moorish race, wearing similar garb and speaking a dialect of the same language. They arrived in a cloud of light horse, galloping recklessly about, tossing javelins up and catching them, and whooping and yelling like the fiends of Tartaros. In the midst of them came King Jugurtha in a gilded chariot, lashing his horses to a gallop up the winding road to Bocchus' castle and skidding in the mud on the turns until I was sure he would go over the edge.

Mikipsa, who had been king of Numidia at the start of my tale, had divided his kingdom amongst three heirs: his own two sons, Hiempsal and Adherbal, and his nephew Jugurtha, who was older than either. Despite his illegitimate birth, Jugurtha had elbowed his way into the succession by the skill and valor he had shown in war and by his personal charm and craft. He was a tall, lean man in his thirties, brown-skinned, bearded, and singularly handsome. He arrived in barbaric finery, with a huge golden ring in one ear and a necklace of lion's claws around his neck. I have heard that, when the occasion demanded, he could don Greek or Roman garb and manners and quote Homer with the best of them.

After Mikipsa died, Jugurtha seized the first chance to murder his cousin Hiempsal and attack his other cousin Ad-herbal, in hopes of seizing all Numidia. The Romans, who ruled the African lands of the old Carthaginian confederation, compelled Jugurtha to leave Adherbal alone with his fragment of the kingdom, the easternmost third. Jugurtha, however, was not one to leave anything alone if he could help it. He was now harassing Adherbal's territory by raids and seeking to strengthen his position by a marital alliance with his other neighbor, King Bocchus of Mauretania.

The proceedings took several days. On one, the two kings went hunting. At the end of the ceremonies, there were dancers and singers and speeches. The bride and groom were presented to the people and cheered with a deafening uproar. The fact that Jugurtha already had a few wives bothered none.

The feast comprised whole roast oxen, rivers of wine and beer, and a few sober Moorish guards to squelch any fights. Quarrels easily occur when soldiers of two nations get drunk together and start boasting. The Moors are generally a sober, abstemious folk, but on such occasions they make up for lost time.

I saw nothing of Hippalos. Despite the king's protection, the ready-for-aught was taking no chances of coming within my reach.

I was gorging and guzzling with the rest when a brown hand fell on my shoulder. I looked up to see a tall, hawkfaced Numidian standing over me.

"Are you not Eudoxos the Kyzikene?" he asked in barbarously accented Greek.

"Why, yes! And you're—ah—Varsako! I remember you from Alexandria. How did you know me, with this bush on my face?"

"I heard you were in Mauretania," he said, sitting down on the bench beside me, "so I was looking for you. I could not forget the man who saved my life!"

"Oh, that," I said, remembering our scuffle with the robbers. "It was nothing. But tell me ..."

And we were off on reminiscences of our respective adventures during the last five years. Varsako, I learnt, was a provincial judge in Jugurtha's kingdom. We ended the evening staggering about with arms about each other's shoulders, singing tipsily until others threatened to drown us in the beer tub if we did not shut up and let them go to sleep.

Pronax I had sent home early, and Gnouros had feasted with the palace servants and slaves. I fetched him from the slave quarters to walk back to Tingis with me. Many other guests were straggling homeward, too, down the winding road from the castle. The sky was clear and the moon, just past full. It lit up the hillside, showing the recumbent forms of dozens of copulating couples. The Moors practice sexual licence on such occasions, and all the younger women of the vicinity, save those of the royal family, seemed to have turned out to give the Numidian visitors a pleasant memory of their stay.

When the crowd had thinned out, so that nobody was near us, Gnouros said:

"Master! You in danger. King means to kill you."

"What's this, old man?"

"Aye! I hear all the talk in servants' quarters. Servants know everything their masters do, and one who talks Greek got drunk and told me."

"Just what did he tell you?"

"You remember first day we come to castle?"

"Yes."

"Well, after we go back to Tingis, Master Hippalos made king believe he really was Indian seer, like he said. Also, he warned the king that, if you spread story of how Lixus River rises in Atlas Mountains, some enemy—Romans, maybe— might land at mouth of the Lixus, march up it, and take kingdom by surprise, through back door. King's kinsmen and courtiers joined in denouncing you, because they fear that if you make kingdom rich like you say, you will rise in king's favor and they will go down.

"Now, if you only ordinary man, king would have your head off right away, tsk!" He struck his own neck with the side of his palm. "But you are too important and famous."

"I wish I thought so," I said. "Go on."

"King does not want to be blamed for killing a so big man like you. So, Hippalos said to him he should pretend to agree to your plan for voyage. One of his ships will take you down the coast to look for landing places. When they find some little island with nothing but sand, they put you ashore and leave you. Then the king tell people you fell overboard and drowned."

"Well, I suppose I shall have to bribe some fisherman to run us across to Belon," I said.

"Oh, no! The king has sent word to watch ports and roads, in case you try to escape."

'This is a fix!" I said. "By Bakchos' balls, how are we to get out of this damned kingdom?"

Gnouros spread his hands. "How I know? Master has mighty mind; he will think of a way."

"Your confidence touches me, but I wish I could share it Let me think. When do the Numidians leave for home?"

"Day after tomorrow. Tomorrow, everybody have too big hangover to start journey."

Next day, hangover or no, I went again to Bocchus' castle and asked for Varsako. When he came, I murmured:

"Come out for a stroll with me, Varsako. I want to discuss something I don't wish overheard, so we'll talk loudly about something else until we're out of earshot" Then I raised my voice: "By the gods of the underworld, that was some party! I haven't been so drunk since that time we were on the town in Alexandria ..."

He played up to me with noisy anecdotes of his own allegedly bibulous past. When we were well away from the castle wall, I told him of my troubles with King Bocchus.

"You once met this Hippalos," I said. "Do you remember? The night I met you in the Ptolemies' banquet hall, he was the choragus who directed the entertainments, and I think he got you a girl for the night. Have you met him here in his disguise as Sri Hari?"

"Now that you tell me, this Indian did look somehow familiar."

"Well, could you identify him as Hippalos to the king?' "Perhaps, but I do not advise it,"

"Why not?"

"First, from what gossip I heard, the alleged wise man has Bocchus under his thumb. If we accused him, he would merely think up some plausible counteraccusation, and the king would believe him rather than us. Second, Jugurtha warned all of us Numidians to keep aloof from Mauretanian affairs during our visit, and if I took your part he might have my head for it. And third, Bocchus is a king who notoriously hates to admit he is wrong. You prove to his face that he has erred at your peril."

Altogether, Mauretania began to look like a most unhealthy place for me to linger. We discussed the situation at length, Varsako and I, without finding any practical solution but flight. I finally said:

"You're leaving for home tomorrow with the rest of the Numidians, aren't you?"

"Aye."

"Would anybody notice if you had added a couple of servants to your train?"

"I suppose not—if they did not look like anyone the Moors were seeking."

"That will be taken care of."

Next day, when the Numidians set out, nobody observed that Judge Varsako, who had arrived with two servants, departed with five. The new additions were a singularly unkempt, unprepossessing lot, too. Gnouros and I had shaved off our beards, and Pronax, who was a fair-haired, blue-eyed, pimpled youth, we had stained brown all over. We rode mules and led others, which carried our lord's gear and our own.

From Tingis to Tunis is a hard ride of about three hundred leagues, over roads that are mostly mere tracks, without a pretence of grading or paving. By secret communications with friends in Adherbal's part of Numidia, Varsako arranged for us to be passed through this kingdom without trouble. At the frontier of Roman Africa, the guards asked a few questions and waved us through. We reached Tunis a month after leaving Tingis.

At Tunis, I wrote a long letter to my kinsmen in Kyzikos, telling my tale and revealing my plans. Since Gnouros' rheumatism was worse and I did not wish to inflict upon him the pains of another long voyage, I sent him off with the letter on a ship for Peiraieus.

Then I spent a ten-day on the waterfront, looking for ships. I finally bought one aged, leaky coaster, whose owner's new ship had just come off the ways. I had the oldster hauled out, scraped, caulked, tarred, and painted, and then I set out with Pronax and a cargo of African goods.

Two months later, in Skirophorion, I sailed into the Bay of Gades. When I stepped into Eldagon's warehouse and Elda-gon saw me, he dropped and broke an antique Athenian painted pot.

"Hammon!" he cried. "I never expected to see you again! Thrice welcome! Come into the office and talk. I thought King Bocchus had done you in."

"Oh, you have heard about my troubles there?"

"Your former mate, Mandonius, came here to ask for a job. He told us about your journey, albeit he was so vague about the stranding that I suspected him of being to blame."

"He was," I said. "But he did a good job in other respects."

"I don't care how good a ship's officer is in other respects; if he wrecks my ships I don't want him. But tell me all."

"First, I have a little indebtedness to settle. Pronax, bring out your money belt and your wallet"

We counted out the gold we had been carrying, together with the gold and silver I had gained by trading on my way to Gades.

"Now," I said, "this pile represents the value we put on the Tyria. The rest represents the cargo, as nearly as I could come to it by selling the Mikrotyria and her cargo, and the profits I made from Tunis hither. I think you'll find that I'm still a few thousand drachmai in your debt but I can pay that off with another voyage or two."

He sat with his mouth open, then said: "By the gods of Tyre, you are a wonder! I have lost ships before, but never has the captain made a new ship out of the wreckage of the old, salvaged and sold most of the cargo at a profit made extra profit by trading, and then come home to pile the whole thing in my lap! And without losing a single member of your crew, too. Truly, some god must watch over you."

I shrugged. "I've had my share of good and bad luck. Bad when Mandonius ran us aground, and with King Bocchus; and good in getting the crew back to civilization, and escaping from Bocchus, and trading from Tunis hither."

"Do you plan another try at circumnavigation?"

"I'm thinking of it. Would you and Tubal back me again?"

"Since you can apparently make a profit even out of shipwreck, we might."

"Shall I have to wait whilst you build a ship?"

"I think not. The Jezebel is due from Neapolis soon, and she needs refitting anyway."

"Fine. How are your beasts?"

Eldagon became animated. "I have a pair of new bear cubs, born during the winter while the she-bear was in her den. You must see them ..."

Without trying to skin a flayed dog, I made a new agreement with Eldagon and Tubal. The Jezebel (named for Eldagon's wife) duly arrived and was refitted for the voyage.

For an auxiliary, I had decided that longboats were inadequate. For inshore exploration, I needed a galley big enough to take care of herself if a blow parted her from her mother ship. So I had Tubal rebuild an old eighty-foot-dispatch bireme to my requirements. By permanently closing the lower oar ports, cutting down topweight, and removing the ram, I got a more seaworthy ship than most galleys of any size. With only twenty-four rowers, she was slower than with her full complement of forty-eight but still fast enough for my purposes. The larger crew would have put too much strain on the food supply.

I should like to have rigged both ships with my triangular sail. But I gave up the idea when I saw that, if I did, no sailors would sail with me, since they mortally feared anything new. Nevertheless, I had a fore-and-aft sail (as I like to call them) and a spar for it secretly stowed in Jezebel's hold, in case we had to buck a prevailing wind and current as had happened before.

By late Boedromion, I was ready to go. Again I shipped shipwrights, carpenters, and plenty of tools; also the means for growing a crop of wheat. Hearing of my plans, Doctor Mentor and his assistant came over from Tingis and signed on for another try. Mandonius also asked for his old job, but I regretfully turned him down. Although a likable fellow, he was too volatile and irresponsible for my first officer. I hired a Gaditanian Hellene named Hagnon instead.

I did not ship any more dancing girls; once was enough. I did, however, do something that I ought to have thought of the first time.

There were a number of black slaves in Gades. I tracked them down, one by one, and asked them where they came from. Most had originated in eastern Africa, whence they had been kidnaped and brought to the Inner Sea by way of the Nile and Alexandria. A few, however, came from the West, having been caught by Moorish slavers. Although the great African desert is a formidable barrier, it is not quite impassable. There are routes by which daring traders or raiders can cross it, and some of the hardiest desert tribes make a practice of this.

When I learnt that some of these Africans came from the parts I meant to visit, I tried to buy them. Some owners would not sell, and I obtained only three. Although they bore the usual Greek slaves' names, for my purposes I preferred to call them by their original African appellations: Mori, Dia, and Sumbo. I told these three that, when we reached their homelands, I wanted them as interpreters. If their work was good, I should free them and either put them ashore or sign them on as sailors, whichever they liked. Two seemed pleased by the prospect; the other man, Mori, was apprehensive.

"My tribe all eaten up," he said. "No have tribe any more. You go there, they eat you, too."

"Who will eat us?"

"Mong. Man-eating tribe."

Although I am less superstitious than most men, the idea of ending up in a tribesman's stomach instead of in a proper grave made me wince. I commanded my blacks to say nothing of this quaint habit to the crew. Many men, brave enough ordinarily, would turn pale and flee at the thought of such a fate.

All three blacks agreed that, if one continued southward down the west coast of Africa for hundreds of leagues, one passed the desert and came to forested lands. The desert belt, in other words, extends right across Africa from east to west, and a forested belt stretches parallel to it to southward.

And so, on the twelfth of Pyanepsion, the Jezebel and her companion, the galley Astra, sailed from Gades for a final try at the wealth of India.

For the first two ten-days of our voyage, everything went like a dream. We stopped at the island I had found on my previous voyage to top off our water. As the skiff pulled away from shore, a group of men rushed out of the scrub and down to the shore. They were lean, brown men of the Moorish type but seemed more primitive than even the Lixites. Some wore goatskin mantles, while others were altogether naked. They danced and capered on the beach, shaking wooden spears and clubs and shouting across the water. I was wrong in reporting this island as uninhabited.

We coasted the island to the southwest and discovered that it was really two, divided by a narrow strait. Beyond the second island we sighted other islands of the group, further out to sea.

For many days there was nought but the heaving blue sea to starboard, the long, low buff-colored coast to port, the blinding sun overhead, and the eternal northeast wind behind us. Once, indeed, the wind changed. A hot blast swept over us from the southeast, bringing such masses of dust and sand that we could no longer see to navigate. We felt our way in to shallow water, put down anchors, covered the hatches, wrapped our faces in cloth as the desert folk do, and waited out the storm. Presently there came a crackle of thunder and a spatter of rain—just enough to turn the soil that now cumbered our decks into slimy mud. When the storm ceased, we had a terrible task getting our ships clean again.

As Pyanepsion ended and Maimakterion began, signs of greenery appeared. The Astra, nosing in towards shore, reported that the land was now well covered with grass and herbs. The men also said they had sighted wild animals. Later they saw a group of huts, but too far away to discern the people.

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.

Then Teita asked if we were connected with the Gbaru. These, Mori explained, were a powerful tribe further inland. Teita suspected a connection because we, like the Gbaru, had the strange habit of covering our bodies with cloth. The Baga feared the Gbaru, who raided them.

Now the greatest menace of this part of Africa—sickness —began to visit us. Four of my sailors and my young cousin Pronax came down with fevers and fluxes. I made them as comfortable on the Jezebel as I could. Doctor Mentor puttered around the patients and looked wise, but I do not think he knew any more about African ills than I did.

When we examined the Astra, we found that the rock had done more damage than we thought. One of the strakes was cracked and leaking. We patched the ship's bottom with tarred wool, sheet lead, and some boards which we shaved down to fit snugly over the site of the damage. With reasonable luck, that patch should have held throughout the journey.

All this took over a ten-day. About two days after my conversation with Teita, we were ready to launch the ships at the next high tide. Around noon, while we were still awaiting the tide, a Baga rushed screaming into the village. Instantly, all the other Baga dropped what they were doing to scamper off, as they had done when my ships sailed into the bay. I looked for Mori to ask the cause of this commotion, but he had fled with the rest.

A thunder of drums echoed across the bay, and a swarm of armed blacks burst out of the forest and rushed upon us, yelling like furies. One Baga, who had been slow in starting, ran towards the river. When they saw he was gaining on them, one of them shot an arrow at him. African bows are puny little things, and the arrows are not even feathered. Nonetheless, the shaft struck the fleeing Baga in the back of the shoulder. Although it did not look like a serious wound, after a few more steps the fugitive began to stagger. Soon he sank to the ground, twitching in his death throes. The arrow had been poisoned. Meanwhile, the newcomers swarmed down from the village to where my ships lay.

Only a few of my crew were armed. Life among the peaceful, friendly Baga had made us careless. I drew my sword and shouted to the others to arm themselves, but it was no use. A half dozen spears and swords could do nothing against a hundred native warriors, many of whom bore spears with heads of iron or bronze.

The newcomers wore kilts and loincloths, either of fur or of coarse, striped cloth. They bore headdresses of feathers and monkey fur and jingled with necklaces, bracelets, and other ornaments of shell, ivory, and metal. Besides their bows and spears, they bore large, oval shields of the hide of Africa's thick-skinned beasts. Their faces were painted in patterns of red and white. They were, I soon learnt, the Gbaru of whom Teita had spoken.

An older man, clad in a kind of toga, seemed to direct them. At a barked command, they drew up in a semicircle around us, spears poised and bows nocked. We stood in a clump with our backs against the Astra.

The man in the toga shouted something at us. When we looked blank, he stepped forward, tapped the blade of my sword with his spear, and pointed to the ground. I dropped the weapon, and the other armed men in my party did likewise.

As soon as we were disarmed, a group of Gbaru sprang upon us, pulling us out of our own crowd one by one. They stripped us of everything but our shoes. My bronze statuette of Ganesha was taken from me with my clothes. I suppose that to this day it hangs from the neck of some Gbaru warrior as a grigri or talisman, half a world away from its Indian home.

The Gbaru then bound our wrists with rawhide thongs, of which they had brought an ample supply. Other thongs linked each man with the next, until we formed a human chain, like that in which I had marched to the gold mines of Upper Egypt-Other Gbaru climbed aboard the ships and fell upon the loot they found there. There was a perfect shower of glassware, purple garments, and other trade goods falling from the deck of the Jezebel as the whooping, laughing Gbaru threw them over the side. Much of the stuff they broke or ruined in their haste and ignorance. My five sick men, including young Pronax, they hauled out and killed by smashing their skulls with clubs. Had Lady Luck spared him, that boy would have grown into a fine man.

One of my three blacks, Sumbo, had been caught with the rest of us. He was, in fact, only four men from me in the human chain. I called:

"Sumbo! Do you understand these people?"

"Who, me?" he said. "What?"

"I said, do you understand these people?"

Sumbo thought awhile and said: "I understand a little only. I am Bulende; my tribe live far off that way." He pointed to the southeast. "But every man speak a little Gbaru."

In fact, since the Gbaru were the strongest tribe in this part > of Africa, their language had become an intertribal tongue, like Greek in the Inner Sea. I said:

"What do you think they'll do with us?"

"Do with us?"

"Yes, you idiot! Eat us?"

Again the long pause. "Not know. Make slaves, maybe. Gbaru not maneaters, but they kill many men for sacrifice to gods."

"Then you shall teach me Gbaru," I said. "Me? Teach you?"

It went on like this for the rest of our journey. While docile and willing, Sumbo was as stupid as a Cyprian ox—certainly the last man anybody would choose to teach a strange and difficult language. These African tongues, I was surprised to .find, had very complex grammars. Moreover, the tone of a word affected its meaning, so that one had to sing one's sentences. It gave the language a musical sound but made it even harder to learn.

Still, by the time we reached Klimoko, I had mastered the words for such elementary things as food, drink, parts of the body, and material objects like houses, rivers, and trees. I could even put together a few simple sentences. The Gbaru made no attempt to silence us; they were usually chattering away loudly themselves. Africans are a noisy folk, always talking, laughing, arguing, shouting, and singing, save when actually hunting or laying an ambush.