But this tortuous course also made the Congo the least navigable of the great rivers. Serious disruptions began with the rapids of Stanley Pool, three hundred miles from the Atlantic. Two thousand miles inland, at Kisangani, where the river was still -a mile wide, the Wagenia Cataract blocked all navigation. And as one moved farther upriver along the fan of tributaries, the impediments became even more pronounced, for above Kisangani the tributaries were descending rapidly into the low jungle from their sources - the highland savannahs to the south, and the 16,000-foot snowcapped Ruwenzori Mountains to the east.
The tributaries cut a series of gorges, the most striking of which was the Portes d'Enfer - the Gates of Hell - at Kon?golo. Here the placid Lualàba River funneled through a gorge half a mile deep and a hundred yards wide.
The Ragora was a minor tributary of the Lualaba, which it joined near Kisangani. The tribes along the river referred to it as baratawani, "the deceitful road," for the Ragora was notoriously changeable. Its principal feature was the Ragora Gorge, a limestone cut two hundred feet deep and in places only ten feet wide. Depending on recent rainfall, the Ragora Gorge was either a pleasant scenic spectacle or a boiling whitewater nightmare.
At Abutu, they were still fifteen miles upriver from the gorge, and conditions on the river told them nothing about conditions within the gorge. Munro knew all that, but he did not feel it necessary to explain it to Elliot, particularly since at the moment Elliot was fully occupied with Amy.
Amy had watched with growing uneasiness as Kahega's men inflated the two Zodiac rafts. She tugged Elliot's sleeve and demanded to know What balloons?
"They're boats, Amy," he said, although he sensed she had already figured that out, and was being euphemistic. "Boat" was a word she had learned with difficulty; since she disliked water, she had no interest in anything intended to ride upon it.
Why boat? she asked.
"We ride boat now," Elliot said.
Indeed, Kahega's men were pushing the boats to the edge of the water, and loading the equipment on, lashing it to the rubber stanchions at the gunwales. -
Who ride? she asked.
"We all ride," Elliot said.
Amy watched a moment longer. Unfortunately, everyone was nervous, Munro barking orders, the men working hastily. As she had often shown, Amy was sensitive to the moods of those around her. Elliot always remembered how she had insisted that something was wrong with Sarah Johnson for days before Sarah finally told the Project Amy staff that she had split up with her husband. Now Elliot was certain that Amy sensed their apprehension. Cross water in boat? she asked.
"No, Amy," he said. "Not cross. Ride boat."
No, Amy signed, stiffening her back, tightening her shoulders.
"Amy," he said, "we can't leave you here."
She had a solution for that. Other people go. Peter stay Amy.
"I'm sorry, Amy," he said. "I have to go. You have to go."
No, she signed. Amy no go.
"Yes, Amy." He went to his pack and got his syringe and a bottle of Thoralen.
With her body stiff and angry, she tapped the underside of her chin with a clenched fist.
"Watch your language, Amy," he warned her.
Ross came over with orange life vests for him and Amy.
"Something wrong?"
"She's swearing," Elliot said. "Better leave us alone." Ross took one look at Amy's tense, rigid body, and left hurriedly.
Amy signed Peter's name, then tapped the underside of her chin again. This was the Ameslan sign politely translated in scholarly reports as "dirty," although it was most often employed by apes when they needed to go to the potty. Primate investigators were under no illusions about what the animals really meant. Amy was saying, Peter shiny.
Nearly all language-skilled primates swore, and they employed a variety of words for swearing. Sometimes the pejorative seemed to be chosen at random, "nut" or "bird"
or "wash." But at least eight primates in different laboratories had independently settled on the clenched-fist sign to signify extreme displeasure. The only reason this remarkable coincidence hadn't been written up was that no investigator was willing to try and explain it. It seemed to prove that apes, like people, found bodily excretions suitable terms to express denigration and anger.
Peter shitty. she signed again.
"Amy.. ." He doubled the Thoralen dose he was drawing into the syringe.
Peter shiny boat shiny people shiny.
"Amy, cut it out." He stiffened his own body and hunched over, imitating a gorilla's angry posture; that often made her back off, but this time it had no effect.
Peter no like Amy. Now she was sulking, turned away from him, signing to nobody.
"Don't be ridiculous," Elliot said, approaching her with the syringe held ready. "Peter like Amy."
She backed away and would not let him come close to her. In the end he was forced to load the CO2 gun and shoot a dart into her chest. He had only done this three or four times in all their years together. She plucked out the dart with a sad expression. Peter no like Amy.
"Sorry," Peter Elliot said, and ran forward to catch her as her eyes rolled back and she collapsed into his arms.
Amy lay on her back in the second boat at Elliot's feet, breathing shallowly. Ahead, Elliot saw Munro standing in the first boat, leading the way as the Zodiacs slid silently downstream.
Munro had divided the expedition into two rafts of six each; Munro went in the first, and Elliot, Ross, and Amy went in the second, under Kahega's command. As Munro put it, the second boat would "learn from our misfortunes."