Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 7.djvu/228

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��Captain George Hamilton Perkins, U.S.N.

��[April,

��of law, the victims were collected to be shipped as unwilling apprentices, not slaves, to be returned to their native wilds, if they lived long enough ; now ascending a river dangerous for boats, where, if the boat had capsized, him- self and crew would but have served a morning's meal to the hungry sharks held as fetich by the natives along the stream, who yearly sacrifice young girls reared for the purpose to their pro- pitiation ; now scouring the bush in pursuit of the gorilla or shooting hip- popotami by the half-dozen, and other adventures and exploits wherein duty, excitement, and gratified curiosity were intermingled with danger and hair- breadth escape that few would care to tempt.

On one occasion, he volunteered to go with a boat's crew and find the mouth of the Settee River, not dream- ing of landing through the unusually heavy surf. " But," said he, " in pulling along about half a mile from shore, a roller struck the boat and cap- sized it. Of course we were obliged to swim for shore ; in fact, we had little to do with it, for the moment the boat was upset we were driven into the surf, and not one of us thought we should ever reach the shore, for if we were not lost in the surf, the sharks would eat us up. As I rose on the top of a wave I could look ahead and see the stretch of wild, tossing surf, which it seemed impossible for any one to live in ; but when I looked back I could count all my men striking out, which was very encouraging, as I feared one or two might be under the boat. I thought for a moment of you all at home, and wondered if mother would not feel a little frightened if she knew how strong the chances were against her son's receiving any more letters from

��home. Just then a roller struck me and carried me down so deep I was caught by the undertow and carried toward the sea, instead of the land. When I came to the surface I tried to look out for the next roller, but it was no use ; the first one half-drowned me, and the next kept me down so long that when I rose I was in the wildest of the surf, which tumbled and rolled me about in a way I did not like at all. My eyes, nose, and mouth were full of sand, and, in fact, I thought my time had come. Just then I looked on shore, and saw two of my men dragging some one from the water, and at that sight I struck out with one despairing kick, and managed to get near enough for two of the men to reach me ; but that was all I knew of the affair until a little after sunset, when I became conscious of the fact that I was being well shaken, and I heard one of the men say, ' Cheer up, Mr. Perkins ! Your boat and all the men are on shore.' This was such good news that I did not much mind the uncom- fortable position in which I found myself. I was covered with sand and stretched across a log about two feet high, my head on one side and my feet on the other. The men had worked a long while to bring me to. Three of the men were half-drowned and one injured. We managed to get the boat in the river, but suffered awfully from thirst. The next morning we lost our way, and, after pulling around till mid-afternoon, we stumbled on some natives fishing. We followed them home, but found them such a miserable, bad-looking lot of negroes that we expected trouble. Knowing that the native villages in the daytime are left in charge of the old men and women, and not knowing what might

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