IN THE BATETELA COUNTRY
Our ill-fortune in the matter of fuel followed us to the end of the
voyage, for we were compelled to stop and cut wood in the forest during
the run from Ikoka to Batempa, which under ordinary circumstances
should occupy about four hours. The scenery between Ikoka and Batempa
is exceptionally fine. The left bank of the Sankuru is flat and swampy,
clothed with the impenetrable forest which is so prominent a feature
in African river scenery, whose tangled masses of luxuriant vegetation
overhang the swiftly rushing stream; but on the right bank red rocky
cliffs rise sheer from the water’s edge to a height of some 300 feet,
the nesting-place of innumerable grey parrots, the ruddy colouring
of the rocks providing a striking contrast to the varied greens of
the forest which clothe their summits. The Kasai Company’s factory at
Batempa is situated on the right bank a few hundred yards up-stream
from the commencement of these cliffs, and the view down-river from the
post is one of the finest on the Sankuru. We arrived at Batempa on the
morning of December 24th. We had just got our baggage conveyed from the
_Velde_ to the shore, and the company’s agent was showing us a suitable
position for our camp, when a tornado, which had been threatening all
the morning, suddenly broke with characteristic violence and soaked our
various loads long before there was time to remove them to the shelter
of a rubber drying-house, the water rushing down from the rising ground
to the west of the factory in streams several inches deep, completely
inundating the ground whereon our baggage had been deposited. Like most
of these tropical storms, however, the tornado was of brief duration,
and excepting that we had to sleep that night in wet tents pitched in
a puddle little harm was done. Since our visit to Batempa the factory
has been removed to higher ground, where the rains can work less havoc,
and whence an even finer view of the river is obtainable. The day
following our arrival was Christmas Day, which we celebrated as well as
circumstances would permit with the company’s agent. A sheep, purchased
at Ikoka (which, by the way, is considered a rare luxury in most parts of
the Kasai), some chickens, a plum-pudding from the Army and Navy Stores,
and a chocolate cake, in the art of making which Torday is a past master,
accompanied by a bottle of champagne from our limited supply of medical
comforts, constituted the feast to which our appetites, as yet unimpaired
by contact with the Congo climate, did ample justice; and in place of the
old-time ghost stories in the evening we first heard of the existence of
what promised to be a truly remarkable animal. As we sat smoking after
dinner on the verandah of the agent’s bungalow, admiring the wonderful
effects of the moonlight over the Sankuru and listening to the music of
Torday’s phonograph, a weird cry echoed through the forest close behind
the factory. We were all attention in a moment; neither of us had heard
the like before.
The noise was quite distinctive, “Ow-wa,” repeated three or four times,
and then silence. We questioned the agent, and he informed us that
the cry proceeded from a small animal which was fairly common in the
neighbourhood, but which he himself had never seen. He told us that it
was held in considerable awe by the natives, and that a former director
of the Kasai Company had offered a very large price for a living specimen
without being able to induce the people to attempt its capture.
We at once summoned a member of the local Basonge tribe who was employed
in the factory, and from him we elicited the following astounding
information. The animal is known to the Basonge as the bembe, and to
the Batetela as the yuka; it is grey in colour, and is about the size
of a fox-terrier dog; it lives in holes in the trees, and although its
movements on the ground are slow, it moves in the tree-tops with great
agility, always climbing _with its back to the branch_! Its hindquarters
are hairless, its legs long, and it walks upon its wrists! It is a
dangerous beast to interfere with, although our informant could not tell
us exactly what it would do to any one who was rash enough to interfere
with it. Obviously we had come across a truly remarkable creature!
Needless to say, we were most anxious to secure a specimen, living or
dead, of this wonderful animal, so Torday promised a large reward of
trade goods to any one who would capture one, and I took many a ramble
with my gun in the forest by night in the hope that I might see the
form of the “yuka” silhouetted against the sky as he emerged from his
resting-place to feed. The creature, it is said, always emits its strange
cry when starting out in search of food, and again when returning
after its meal, but if disturbed it at once becomes silent, and resting
absolutely motionless among the branches (after the manner of monkeys
when hunted), it is almost indistinguishable even by daylight. Needless
to say, my nightly peregrinations in search of the animal resulted in
nothing but scratches and discomfort to myself, and when we left Batempa
the yuka remained as much a mystery as the night when we first heard its
voice. We were, however, so thoroughly interested in it that we were
determined to leave no stone unturned during our stay in the district to
obtain a specimen for the Zoo or for the Museum.
Before our porters arrived, and thus enabled us to start for the Lubefu
River, we witnessed a very picturesque dance in the factory of Batempa.
The local Basonge chief, having heard of our presence and of our desire
to purchase articles of native manufacture, came in one morning bringing
a large number of interesting objects for sale, and accompanied by his
professional dancers and orchestra. During our wanderings in the Kasai
we never heard better native music than that produced by this Basonge
band. The Bambala of the Kwilu River and the Babunda of the Kancha
(peoples of whom I shall have something to say later on) are undoubtedly
superior as singers to the Basonge, but as instrumental musicians the
latter are unrivalled in the districts we visited. The orchestra was
composed of a number of drums, wooden gongs, flutes, and a xylophone.
The first two of these might well have been left out, but they are so
common in Africa that one’s ears become quite hardened to their deafening
and monotonous din. The remarkable point about the orchestra was the
flute-playing. Each instrument is capable of producing one note only, but
a large number of performers played upon them, and so exactly did they
keep time and come in at the right moment that the melody produced was
extremely pleasing to the European ear, and quite different to the hubbub
with which African dances are usually accompanied. The leader of the
orchestra, no small personage in the village, played a large xylophone
in which wooden keys of different thicknesses placed above calabashes,
varying in size to produce the different notes, were struck with wooden
hammers. The dancers performed to the strains of the band. A peculiarity
of the Basonge people is the existence of a regularly trained and _paid_
corps of dancers. These consist for the most part of small girls, aged
from about eight to ten years, attired in spotless loin-cloths of
European cotton-stuff, and covered with many strings of coloured beads.
These little ladies move slowly in Indian file, making S-like curves
in their course around the band in the mazes of a dance which, if not
graceful in itself, presents a very picturesque spectacle as performed
by the children. A large number of the men who accompanied the chief
also took part in the dance, but the performance of the little girls was
undoubtedly the principal feature. Music and dancing are the arts in
which the Basonge chiefly excel, and we were unable to find any traces of
the carver’s art to compare with the specimens we were later to secure
among the Bushongo. The Basonge, however, manufacture some very neat and
ornamental basket-work.
[Illustration: THE LEADER OF THE BASONGE ORCHESTRA.]
[Illustration: THE SANKURU NEAR BATEMPA.]
It may seem rather extraordinary that a tribe which is so far ahead of
its neighbours in the gentle arts referred to above should be strongly
addicted to cannibalism; yet such is the case. At the present day, when
the European is firmly established in their country and the centre of
government of the district lies on their frontier, the practice of eating
human flesh has practically died out, but a few years ago it was very
prevalent, and doubtless many instances of it occur to-day unbeknown to
any one save the inhabitants of the villages in which they take place.
The Basonge exhibit many other signs of their contact with the white man
besides the decline of their cannibalistic habits. Native-made cloth is
no longer worn among them, its place having been entirely taken by the
cheap cotton goods from Europe which form the present currency in the
country, and which have quite superseded the former commodities used in
exchange by the natives. In years gone by hoe-blades were largely used
for bartering purposes, and even now hoe-blades imported from Europe are
readily accepted in exchange for food-stuffs and other local produce,
although their value has fallen considerably since the time when a man
used to pay from ten to thirty blades for a wife, when four of these
useful articles would buy a goat, and when the price of a male slave
would not usually exceed twenty. The old-time hard wooden spears and bows
and arrows have largely given place to cheap trade guns, and in many
other ways the Basonge are exhibiting signs of that change which must
assuredly come over native life when once the European has firmly set
foot in the country.
At Batempa we engaged a cook and three “boys.” My henchman, engaged on
Stanley Pool, had returned down the river in the _Velde_ on his way back
to Leopoldville, where he could indulge his propensities for idling to
the fullest extent, so we were left with Jones as the sole native member
of our party. We decided to employ as personal servants quite young boys
who had never previously been in the service of a European, and allow
Jones to teach them their duties. I think it is far more satisfactory
as a rule, when a long stay is to be made in Africa, for the European
to engage as his “boy” a young, intelligent savage, and “break him in”
himself than to take over some one else’s servant. The negro when a
child is extremely quick at learning anything which interests him, and
the newly acquired dignity of becoming a white man’s “boy” is quite
sufficient to give the lad an interest in his work. If one has another
European’s cast-off “boy” one finds that he has usually learned bad
habits from long intercourse with the semi-civilised natives of the
factory or Government post, and also it will take him a long time to
unlearn the ways to which his late master has accustomed him and become
used to those of his new employer. On the whole, therefore, I think it
is best for the white man, whenever possible, to train his own boy, and
the result will almost surely be that he will get exactly the servant
that he deserves. Treat your boy well and he will repay you with faithful
service; keep him in his place or he will presume upon your good nature
and become careless and idle; be absolutely just in all your dealings
with him, as you would be with the porters who carry your loads from
one place to another, and never allow him to imagine that the fact that
he is your confidential servant will save him from punishment should
he provoke disputes by his arrogance in the villages at which you stay.
My “boy,” Sam, whom we engaged at Batempa, was in my employ for close
upon two years, during the whole of which time he carried the keys of
my boxes and was responsible for their contents; I never had a single
article stolen from them. This should prove that the much-abused African
servant can, at any rate, be honest. While on the subject of “boys” let
me say a word as to their payment. In the Congo one is obliged when in
a Government post to make a written contract with one’s “boy,” duly
signed by a magistrate, but in the bush one cannot, of course, observe
this regulation, and one accordingly writes out a contract oneself and
explains to the “boy” what it contains. The wages paid to uncivilised
natives engaged up-country are very low, and I think it is as well to
arrange as low a rate of pay as possible with one’s “boy,” afterwards
delighting him with occasional presents. “Boys” are usually hired by the
month, but I consider it a great mistake to actually pay the boy monthly,
especially when travelling about. Let him know, of course, exactly how
much he is entitled to, and explain to him that he can draw his pay as
it becomes due, but offer to keep it for him and let him draw from you
goods as he actually requires them. It is no trouble to write down the
amounts he draws on the back of his contract, and you will do the “boy” a
kindness by restricting his natural inclination to squander his earnings;
in addition to this you will have to carry about with you rather less
trade goods than if you always had to pay your servants at the end of
each month. “Boys” waste their pay in most ridiculous ways. It is very
common indeed for a lad fresh from the “bush” to be kindly received by
older servants in some Government post which you happen to visit. These
“sharks” suggest that on his departure he should seal a friendship with
them by an interchange of gifts, by which means they extract a good sum
in trade goods from the boy, giving him some useless article in return.
It is astonishing how prevalent this custom is, and it is incredible
how often the same boy can be caught by the trick. If he has to come
to you to draw the goods he will think twice about spending them, or
very likely tell you why he wants them, in which case you can show him
that he is being made a fool of. I am sure that the very little trouble
caused by this method of banking for your boy is more than repaid by
the greater honesty with which he will serve you. Once let him have the
entire management of his earnings and he will squander them in a very
short time, after which, being penniless, he will very likely steal. If
he has to come to you when he wants his goods he will also be less likely
to gamble, and gambling among the servants must be put down with a firm
hand or wholesale robbery will result. It is illegal to hit one’s boy,
but gambling, hemp-smoking, and drunkenness can only be met by immediate
chastisement, which, however, need not be resorted to for anything else;
for theft, of course, must result in dismissal. These remarks only apply
to “boys” engaged for expeditions such as ours or for service in remote
up-country stations. On the coast, where money is the currency and the
innumerable temptations to spend it inseparable from big settlements
are everywhere to be found, it is hopeless to try and look after one’s
“boy’s” financial affairs; but in civilised places older and more
experienced servants are employed, and these are, or should be, able to
take care of themselves. During our journey we always employed the system
of banking described above and never once regretted it. When we paid off
“Sam” just before our return to Europe he was a rich man; had he been
paid monthly he would not have had a penny to his name. In his case we
paid over his earnings to a missionary near his home to obviate the risk
of his being robbed of them on his way back from the coast. Sam, who was
only about twelve years of age, commenced his service for a fixed wage
of eight yards of cotton material per month! Our cook, Luchima, a member
of the Batetela tribe, received double this amount. He turned out to be
a fair cook, as cooks go in Central Africa, and a faithful servant, whom
only ill-health prevented from accompanying us to the end of our journey.
The other servants engaged consisted of a “boy” for Hardy, also very
young, and another lad whose name, being interpreted, signified “Onions,”
and who was to do odd jobs about the camp, help the other boys, and carry
a few of the small objects, such as camera, water-bottle, &c., which we
should need upon the march.
After a few days spent at Batempa the porters who were on their way home
to the Lubefu arrived, and we could start upon our journey. Sixty-five
men under two “capitas” or headmen appeared, so we were able to take
most of our impedimenta with us, leaving a few “chop-boxes,” or cases
of provisions, at Batempa, to be sent for as required. The porters on
the whole were a fine sturdy lot of men, for the Batetela as a rule are
powerful people; all were attired in loin-cloths of imported cotton, and
many wore suspended from their belts the skins of small wildcats which
are so commonly worn in this district as to form part of the national
dress of the Batetela. The distribution of loads to a new lot of porters
is very often a very troublesome business. One naturally tries to give
the heaviest objects to the bigger men, but unless one keeps a sharp
look-out the strong ones will frequently pass on their burdens to others,
physically less fit, who are unable to resent this treatment. Porters
will usually try to secure the smallest loads, quite regardless of the
weight, preferring a very heavy but compact box of cartridges to an
almost empty wooden crate. This is not so ridiculous as it may at first
sight appear, for all over the Kasai district double loads are carried
attached to a pole borne upon the shoulders of the porters, so that a
small and heavy package is less fatiguing to carry along the narrow,
tortuous forest paths than a large but lighter one, which would need
careful steering to prevent it continually catching in the branches which
overhang the road. When once a load has been handed over to its porters
they are responsible for it until they reach their destination. The usual
rule is to pay the carriers their wages at the end of the journey, and
to serve out to every man each day a quantity of the rough salt which
takes the place of small change in most parts of the Kasai, and with
which the porters can buy food in the villages where the caravan halts
for the night. Upon leaving the shores of the Sankuru our way lay for
a few miles through the dense belt of forest which borders the river,
in the course of which we had to scale some steep ascents that caused
our porters some trouble in carrying their loads, for the track near
the factory was none of the best and much overhung by trees and bushes;
but once we had left the river forest behind us our path lay in great
undulating grassy plains in which very few trees were visible, except in
the valleys where little streams meandered through strips of woodland.
The weather was intensely hot, and our twenty-three days of inactivity
on board the _Velde_ had by no means fitted us for much exertion, so
we felt the effects of our first day’s march rather severely. Torday
experienced one of his rare attacks of fever about an hour before
reaching the village at which we were to spend the night, and collapsed
upon the road, but we sent back the portable hammock in which Hardy
was travelling to bring him in, and a little treatment and some sleep
brought his temperature down, so that he was able to march next day. We
camped at the little village of Okitulonga, the first of the Batetela
settlements that we entered. There was very little of interest in the
place save that here we first saw the Batetela hut, which is nowadays
being gradually superseded in many villages by rectangular dwellings
built of plaster, modelled upon the plan of the European’s bungalow. The
native Batetela hut is circular, with very low walls—only some two feet
high—covered with a high conical roof of thatched grass. The interiors of
these huts are dark and stuffy in the extreme. The men in the village,
like our porters, were all dressed in material imported from Europe,
but the women’s costume was remarkable, if scanty. It consisted solely
of a girdle, from the front of which was suspended a minute piece of
cloth, the lower end of which was held in between the legs; at the back a
few strings of beads, about eighteen inches in length, hung like a tail
from the belt. This completed the dress. The primitive Batetela ladies
are nowhere extravagant in the matter of costumes, as I shall show when
I describe our visit to those portions of the tribe which inhabit the
equatorial forest, but it struck me as rather remarkable that so near
the Sankuru, where the men have discarded their native-made loin-cloths
in favour of European cotton-stuffs, and where any man will wear any
European garment that he can lay hands on, that the women should be so
conservative in their loyalty to their scanty national dress. There is
plenty of European material to be earned in the district, so one can only
imagine that the natives prefer their women to dress in the fashions of
their grandmothers. A few of the more important Batetela, particularly
those who have served under the white man, will dress their wives in
cotton cloth, but this has not yet become the custom with the ordinary
inhabitants of the villages.
Our second stage brought us to Kasongo-Batetela, the village of one of
the two most important chiefs of this part of the Batetela country;
the second one being the chief of Mokunji, whom we were on our way to
visit. These men are the overlords of many villages, each of which has
its own petty chief. The country at this point is hilly, consisting of
about equal portions of forest and tree-studded grass land. Upon our
arrival at Kasongo’s village we encamped at the rest-house belonging to
the Kasai Company, where the agent from Batempa stays when he visits
the place to purchase rubber. We were received by a Sierra Leone clerk
in the employ of the Kasai Company, who informed us that Kasongo, whose
residence was situated on a hill about a mile from the rest-house, would
visit us with his band in the evening. We here broke through our rule
of always, where possible, pitching our tents actually in the native
village, for we were on our way to study the Batetela nearer the Lubefu,
and we knew that we should find ample opportunities later on of observing
the daily life of the people, while little could be expected to result
from merely sleeping a night in Kasongo’s village; therefore we encamped
at the rest-house. Just before sundown the chief came to visit us in
state. Attired in a white slouch hat, a white jacket, knickerbockers
and stockings, he did not present a very dignified appearance, but if
one may estimate his importance by the amount of noise produced by his
orchestra he must have been a very great personage indeed. Doubtless
he had heard that the Basonge chief at Batempa had impressed us by the
quality of his music, and he was not to be outdone by his neighbour.
His drummers beat their drums and gongs and yelled themselves hoarse,
while others added to the din by means of iron bells, and little girls
manipulated curiously shaped rattles of basket-work. Except that many of
the men wore large tufts of chicken or plantain-eater feathers on their
heads, there was nothing striking about the appearance of Kasongo’s
followers, and altogether we were not sorry when his visit was at an end.
We made a few phonographic records of his music before his departure, and
created a great deal of surprise by playing them over to him, together
with some records of the Basonge orchestra taken at Batempa. Kasongo was
accompanied by his wives, the chief of whom was attired in a great deal
of white and blue cloth and carried a bead-covered wand. This lady began
to make obvious advances to Hardy; she insisted in sitting as near to
him as she could get, and favouring him with glances of the tenderest
description. Poor Hardy’s discomfiture was great, for he could not speak
a word of the woman’s language, and was at loss to know how to snub
her effectually without giving offence; her lord and master, however,
did not honour us with his company very long, but soon left us to our
dinner, taking his noisy musicians and forward spouse with him. After
leaving Kasongo-Batetela we began to approach the villages in which we
had been told by the magistrate at Lusambo we should in all probability
be attacked. We had determined to proceed from the Sankuru to the Lubefu
unattended by an armed escort despite this friendly warning, for we were
convinced that the presence of armed men in our caravan could not fail
to arouse the suspicion of the natives and ruin our chances of gaining
their confidence, without which we might just as well have stayed at
home for all the amount of information as to their habits and customs
which we should be able to extract from them. When once a native whom
you are questioning becomes suspicious of your motives he can be as
obstinate as a mule, and not one atom of information will you get out of
him even if you are possessed of the patience of Job. I have often seen a
half-suspicious, half-idiotic expression come over a native’s face when
we have been discussing with him a point relating to his beliefs, or some
other delicate subject, and I learned to know that further interrogation
of that particular individual would be merely a waste of time; he does
not quite know why you are asking questions, and nothing will induce
him to answer them. This obstinacy can be exceedingly annoying. I have
heard Torday talking by the hour to an intelligent native, from whom
he has got quite a fund of information, trying gradually to work up
to some important question regarding religion, but as soon as this
question has been mooted the man has closed up his brain like a book and
become as stupid as he was intelligent before he realised what turn the
conversation was taking. It is worse than useless to lose one’s temper
under circumstances like these; one can only wait and try to elicit the
information from some one else. In order to obtain a real knowledge
of the negro, then, it is quite essential that one should enjoy his
confidence, and the surest way to prevent doing so is to arrive in his
village with an armed escort. In the first place, the mere fact of one’s
being accompanied by men equipped for war leads him to suppose that one
anticipates trouble; and, secondly, the men who comprise the escort are
very likely to bully or insult the villagers unbeknown to the white
man, who, of course, gets the credit for their aggressions. We could
not afford to run the risk of becoming unpopular at the very outset
of our journey, for one’s reputation among the natives spreads far in
advance in Africa, so we preferred to attempt a perfectly peaceful march
to the Lubefu, relying upon tact to save us should any unpleasantness
arise. Of course we carried with us our shot-guns and sporting rifles,
for these we should need in shooting for the pot or collecting natural
history specimens. I arrived in the first of the “doubtful” villages in
the pouring rain carried in Hardy’s hammock, for I had a sharp attack of
fever on the marsh, and my reception, if not cordial, was certainly not
hostile, and, as far as my drowsy condition would allow me to observe,
no one paid any particular attention to me. We camped in the village,
and except that Torday heard some one making a rather anti-European
speech during the night there was nothing to lead one to suppose that the
natives were not on the best of terms with the white man. But it was at
the next village, Osodu, one day’s journey from the Lubefu, where trouble
was said to be the most likely to arise. We were not a little surprised,
therefore, to find on the morrow that several stalwart natives of Osodu
had arrived saying that they heard that a white man was ill upon the
road and that they had come to carry him on to their village. This did
not look much like the hostility against which we had been cautioned,
and when we reached Osodu our reception was of the best. We then learned
what had given rise to the magistrate’s fears for our safety. The chief
of Osodu is subordinate to the more important chief of Mokunji, to whose
village we were travelling. As I have already pointed out, a former
chief of Mokunji, by name Okito, had been deposed by the Government, and
Jadi, an ex-soldier who had served in the Arab wars, had been appointed
by the authorities to take his place as being likely, having fought under
the white man, to be friendly in all his dealings with the European. One
or two of the petty chiefs of the country had, quite naturally I think,
resented this interference on the part of the Government in the matter
of the succession to the overlordship of the district and had declined
to recognise Jadi as their paramount chief. The authorities having once
set Jadi upon his throne, were of course bound to support him, and had
therefore threatened the petty chiefs with imprisonment if they persisted
in their refusal to acknowledge his suzerainty over them. The chief of
Osodu had been obdurate and had accordingly been sentenced to a few
months of imprisonment at the Government post of Lubefu. His people were
very indignant at this treatment and had been loud in their protests
against it; but they realised no doubt that an attack upon white men
would not be likely to regain their chief his liberty, so they decided
to receive us with open arms and endeavour to enlist our influence on
behalf of the prisoner. Their indignation at the treatment of their chief
had been the cause of the magistrate’s fears for our safety should we
enter their village. We had let it be generally known that we belonged
to a different “tribe” of white men to the Government officials and to
all other European residents in the country, and that we were simply
travelling in order to see the people. We always in future circulated
this information about ourselves, and by its means we were able to pick
up a lot of information concerning various illegal practices, such as the
poison ordeal and cannibalism, which the natives would undoubtedly have
withheld from an official.
The village of Osodu is provided with a rest-house for the use of
European travellers passing from the Sankuru to the Lubefu, and to this
we were conducted by a crowd of villagers accompanied by drummers and
bell players. Here we were received by the imprisoned chief’s four little
sons, aged from about five to ten years, and by the prime minister. The
children did the honours at the reception themselves. Dressed in old
waistcoats and straw hats and obviously very much got up for the occasion
these little fellows presented us with the usual gift of chickens for
our evening meal, and, in addition to this, produced a liberal supply of
manioc porridge and meat as rations for our men. Torday decided that it
would be wise for us to be lavish in our presents to the people of Osodu,
so he gave our baby hosts a generous amount of trade goods, drawing
from one of the villagers the quaint remark, “These white men are like
children, they are so good.” The interchange of presents having been
accomplished the prime minister proceeded to try to obtain from us a
promise to intercede with the Government on behalf of the father of the
four little boys who sat gravely staring at us while he spoke. He related
to us the circumstances of the chief’s imprisonment, and begged us to
use the influence, which he was convinced great men such as ourselves
must possess, to obtain his release. We replied that we had no authority
whatsoever to meddle in such matters, but Torday promised if occasion
arose to put in a word with the authorities on behalf of the village of
Osodu.
During the two days we spent there we became quite attached to our little
hosts. Their delight with any trifle with which we presented them was
so real and so different to the grasping manner with which presents
to the negro are often received that it was a real pleasure to give
them presents. I remember one of the little fellows beating the ground
with his fists in his joy at receiving two or three empty Mannlicher
cartridges to hang around his neck! As usual our phonograph created a
great impression. After we had given a concert, at which the entire
village attended, some one asked us, “What do you call that? Witchcraft?”
“Oh, no,” modestly replied Torday, “it is only our cleverness.” “That
is witchcraft,” said the native; “cleverness stops short of that.” As
I was sitting on the edge of the crowd which was listening intently
to the phonograph, smoking my pipe and amusing myself by studying the
expressions of the natives as the instrument played the record of a
laughing song, I noticed that a man squatting on his haunches at the side
of my chair was periodically waving his hand with a peculiar sweeping
movement towards his face. I was at first quite at a loss to know what
he was about, until it suddenly dawned upon me that he was endeavouring
to direct into his own mouth the clouds of tobacco smoke that I expelled
from my lips! Evidently he had left his pouch at home. The Batetela are
great smokers and cultivate tobacco themselves, which they consume in
pipes in which the smoke is drawn through water contained in a calabash
under the bowl. They take enormous mouthfuls of smoke, so enormous, in
fact, that they frequently produce attacks of coughing violent enough to
end in a fainting fit, the unfortunate smoker then becoming the object of
much mirth and rough chaff from his neighbours.
[Illustration: A BATETELA DRUMMER.]
[Illustration: BATETELA WALL PICTURES.]
At Osodu we first saw specimens of the curious pictures in red, black and
white, with which the modern Batetela love to decorate the mud wall of
their new houses built upon the plan of a bungalow. These represent wild
animals, natives armed with bows and arrows attacking others equipped
with guns, white men travelling in hammocks accompanied by an escort,
and, in one instance, a white man sitting in a chair drinking out of
an enormous bottle! Some of the pictures include horses, which the
artist must have seen at Lusambo, where three or four of these animals
are kept. The drawings are crude in the extreme, but they are none the
less curious, especially as the art of drawing is very little practised
among the peoples of the Kasai, although, as I shall show later on,
wood-carving and the ornamentation of textiles has reached a high pitch
of excellence in some parts of the districts. At Osodu, too, we also
first saw an object whose very existence many people might be inclined
to doubt, namely a basket strainer used in the manufacture of soap. The
soap is made of burnt banana roots and is of quite useable quality. As a
matter of fact most African natives are by no means uncleanly as regards
their persons. When on the march carriers will rarely miss an opportunity
to bathe in a stream, and many of those peoples who daub themselves with
clay apply fresh earth with such regularity as to cause the practice
to be by no means so dirty as it sounds; of course some tribes that we
visited were filthy in the extreme, but these were the exception rather
than the rule. Upon leaving Osodu, which we did accompanied by the local
band and with every sign of goodwill on the part of the inhabitants,
we entered a tract of country strongly resembling the downs of Sussex,
except that the hollows were as a rule filled with woodland and contained
brooks, and the grass was, of course, longer and coarser. The march to
the village of Mokunji occupied about three hours. As we came within
sight of the village we could see a large crowd waiting to receive us,
and we were met by a man bringing us a complimentary present of pine
apples and bananas who informed us that the Jadi himself was awaiting
our arrival a little farther on. Nearer to the village we met the chief.
He was a tall, very powerfully built man, with a heavy unintelligent
countenance, dressed in garments from Europe. With him came a number
of his wives, his drummers, and a good following of slaves and other
inhabitants of Mokunji, while behind him strode an attendant bearing the
sole weapon noticeable among the crowd, an old flintlock pistol, the
stock of which was studded with many brass nails, and which was evidently
regarded as a state weapon corresponding to the mace of the Lord Mayor’s
show. We all three shook hands with Jadi, who then preceded us to the
rest-house in his village, the drummers accompanying us, and vieing
with each other who should get the most noise out of his instrument.
The rest-house lay upon the edge of the village on the side nearer to
the Lubefu River, and, in addition to a plaster building useable as a
bedroom, there was a thatched shed without walls under the shade of which
the white traveller could take his meals sheltered from the sun or rain.
It was beneath this shed that we interviewed Jadi and explained to him
the object of our visit. A large crowd collected round us in a moment,
so that we were able to gather some impression of the people among whom
we were to work. Excepting that here and there one could notice a man
wearing a scarlet feather, usually drawn from the tail of a grey parrot
while the bird is still alive, stuck into the hair on the crown of his
head to denote that he had at some time slain a powerful enemy on the
field of battle, there was little of interest in the appearance of the
male portion of the population, who were all clothed in the imported
cotton material which, to my mind, robs the native of any picturesqueness
he may possess, though, doubtless, its adoption is a step towards
civilisation. The women, however, were more worthy of attention. Their
bodies and thighs, which were quite unclothed by the national costume I
have already described, were covered with innumerable scars so placed
as to form patterns upon their bodies. These cuts had been rubbed with
charcoal when first made, with the result that the scars left by them
were black and stood out in bold relief from the skins. Some of them must
have projected quite half an inch from the ordinary level of the skin.
All Batetela women are more or less scarred, this form of ornamentation
(if so it can be described) being one of their national characteristics.
Most of the peoples of the Congo with whom we came in contact indulge
in scarring to some extent, but few cover their bodies so completely
with such marks as do the Batetela women; curiously enough the men of
the tribe are rarely scarred. Among the Tofoke tribe of the Lomami River
the men cover their faces, even their lips, with cuts, leaving little
round lumps all over their countenances, and we were informed by one of
them that the process was not so painful as might be imagined, though,
as he remarked, the lips were a bit sore until they had completely
healed up! Jadi was evidently disposed to be very friendly towards us.
Torday explained to him that we should wish to purchase a large number
of locally made objects, and that we hoped the chief would let it be
generally known that we would pay fair prices for almost any kind of
articles used by the natives, and also that we should be glad if Jadi
himself would tell us a little about his land and his people when we came
over to visit him, as we intended to do pretty frequently. No sooner
had Torday expressed a wish to purchase curios than we were simply
overwhelmed by offers to sell every conceivable thing. The crowd thronged
round the shed in which we sat, and implored us to buy knives, arrows,
spears, charms, head-dresses, masks, stools, musical instruments—in fact
everything that the Batetela possess, including a few empty meat tins
left behind by a white man! Evidently it was not going to be difficult
to lay the foundations of a fairly extensive collection. During the
bargaining, in which he himself participated, selling us quite a number
of objects, Jadi sneezed; in a moment every one present was clapping his
hands, and saying “Ah, Ah.” It is, we discovered, a custom among these
people always to applaud the chief when he sneezes!
In the cool of the evening, when we had purchased all the articles which
seemed at first sight to be worth collecting, we took a stroll round
the village. We at once noticed that the place is (or rather was, early
in 1908) in a state of transition from a primitive Batetela village
to a small town designed after the manner of European settlements in
Africa. This change offers an instance of the tendency of the Batetela
to embrace any new ideas introduced among them by the white man. The old
circular huts were rapidly giving place to buildings of plaster, and
these latter were neatly arranged in wide streets radiating from the
residence of the chief. The regularity of the way in which the place was
planned was a great contrast to the jumble of huts which constitutes the
usual African village. Of the number of inhabitants of Mokunji I cannot
speak with any certainty; it is a large village as Batetela villages go,
but it seems to me to be almost impossible to arrive at the numbers of
the male population of any Congo village, unless, of course, one could
hold a roll call of the warriors. Among the Batetela every wife has a
house of her own, but as most men have more than one wife, and many of
them have a good number (it being considered correct for a man of good
position to keep up as many establishments as he can afford), the number
of huts in a village offers no clue to the number of the male population.
I have often marvelled at the statistics so often published of the
number of native inhabitants of the Belgian Congo. How are these figures
arrived at? And how can they pretend to be even approximately correct?
An official census is, I believe, periodically made by the _chefs de
poste_, but in most parts of the country the very whereabouts of many
villages is often unknown to the white resident, and even if he could
personally visit every hamlet in his district, it would, I should think,
be quite impossible for him to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion as
to the number of people they contained. If a list of natives is required
for purposes of taxation, it is hardly likely that every man will come
forward to be enrolled; counting the huts is often, as I have shown, a
very uncertain way of getting at the true numbers of the population, and
chiefs by no means always tell the truth, especially to an official.
Under the circumstances, therefore, I am sure that guesswork must be to
a great extent the means by which the figures referred to are arrived
at. Torday and I have often hazarded guesses at the number of people
inhabiting various villages in which we have stayed some time; our
guesses frequently differed from one another to an extraordinary degree.
It is, therefore, to be presumed that the opinion of an official who
attempts to give an estimate of his population may very likely differ
considerably from the opinion of his predecessor in the district. Under
these circumstances, I cannot understand how it is possible to form any
reliable conclusion as to the increase or decrease of the population.
Any one travelling along a Congolese highway may come across ruined or
deserted villages, and may thus be led to believe that the numbers of the
natives are diminishing. But the people will move their homes to another
site for very trifling reasons—one of the forest tribes we visited
will abandon a village on the death of any important inhabitant—so the
existence of deserted villages cannot, in many cases, be taken into
consideration in calculating the number of the natives.
I shall, in the course of my narrative, avoid expressing any opinion as
to the numerical strength of the tribes we visited, for I feel that such
opinions must be worthless.
We did not, upon this first visit to Jadi, inspect his own residence,
but on several subsequent occasions we found opportunities for doing
so. There is nothing really remarkable about the dwelling; it consists
of a large audience hall with a dais at one end, upon which stands the
royal throne—a deck chair decorated with brass-headed nails. At the back
of this hall, in an enclosed courtyard, are the huts of the chief’s
wives. Everything about the dwelling was neat and tidy, but there was
nothing really remarkable about the place; even the “fetishes,” to which
Jadi attaches much importance, and which are situated in the courtyard,
consisting only of bowls placed upon stakes driven into the ground. As
is usually the case among the peoples of the Kasai, the Batetela do not
_worship_ their fetishes, but merely regard them as charms which have
been endowed by the “medicine-man” with powers to ward off some evil
or to produce some good effect. Small fetishes are worn on the person
everywhere in the Congo, and Jadi wears some in his hair, which are
supposed to warn his head against any plot which may be hatched against
it.
Around the village of Mokunji are extensive plantations, for the
inhabitants are born agriculturists, and are ready to plant any useful
crops which may be introduced among them. As they have come in contact
with the influence of both the European and the Arab, and as many of them
have served in the army, and thus been able to observe cultivation in
widely scattered districts of the Congo, the Batetela have learned to
grow a greater variety of crops than any of the other peoples we visited,
so that, the soil of their country being very productive, food-stuffs
are readily and cheaply procurable among them; millet, manioc, maize,
sweet potatoes, rice, ground-nuts, onions, beans, plantains, and
bananas all being cultivated, while a certain amount of quite smokeable
tobacco is also grown. As I shall show later on, when describing our
wanderings in the equatorial forest, the traveller can always be sure
of obtaining a plentiful supply of food for his porters whenever he
reaches a village occupied by one of the more advanced sub-tribes of the
Batetela nation. We left Jadi after one night spent at his capital town,
promising to return to continue our purchase of curios, and proceeded
to our destination near the Lubefu, the Kasai Company’s factory of
Mokunji, which lies about one and a half hour’s march to the east of
Jadi’s village. The factory is built upon the crest of one of the grassy
downs which, as I have said, are a feature of this part of the country,
and, owing to its exposed position, it is swept by every wind, and is
accordingly comparatively cool and healthy. Upon our arrival we were
cordially received by the Company’s agent, who placed a house at our
disposal, wherein we could do our work with the deposed chief whom we
had come to visit, and where we could store the objects we collected.
We pitched our camp on the edge of the post. Next morning Okitu, the
ex-chief of the local Batetela, the predecessor of Jadi, came to call
upon us. At the time of our visit he was simply a private individual,
devoid of any recognised authority, who had taken up his residence near
the factory at the invitation of the agent, who had been struck with his
intelligence and friendly bearing, but, nevertheless, we could see that
he really exercised a considerable influence upon a good many of the
natives, who, like the people of Osodu, had no great affection for Jadi.
Okitu, modest and unassuming though he was, had far more the manner of a
chief than the blunt, soldierly, but unintelligent looking man whom we
had just visited. He was a thorough native gentleman according to his
lights, and had been, so we were informed, a just ruler of his people.
Fortunately he took a fancy to Torday, so that he readily consented to
assist us in our work of obtaining information about his tribe, with
the result that Torday was able to collect a large amount of notes upon
a great variety of subjects. For the following five or six weeks Okitu
visited us almost daily, and we talked by the hour of the history of
his nation, of the Arab wars, of his religion, of the daily life of the
people, and other such subjects interesting to the student of ethnology.
He told us how his ancestors had come from the north out of the great
forest; how, when they reached the Lubefu River, a difficulty as to
the leadership had arisen, and a fetish-man had said that he who would
command them must lay his right hand upon a stone, and, at one blow, cut
off his forefinger with an axe; how the first Mokunji had done this, and
had led his tribe over the river to the land of the Basonge, and had, by
force of arms, driven the latter to the Sankuru, wresting from them the
country in which we then were. He told us how the influence of the Arab
slave dealers had gradually crept in from the north-east, dominating
even the northern portions of the Batetela tribe, until it reached the
Lubefu; how a weak ruler of Mokunji had allowed himself to be persuaded
to acknowledge the Arabs’ sway, but how his successor had called his
warriors round him, and appealing in 1891 for aid to the white man, newly
arrived at Lusambo, had risen against the oppressor and freed his people
from the curse of Arab suzerainty with the horrors of its slave trade.
All this, and much more, of the history of his people Okitu told us as
Torday plied him with questions, while I noted down the facts as he
narrated them, Hardy being busily employed the while with his brushes,
depicting types of natives and landscapes, or making accurate diagrams
of the patterns of the women’s scars. But it was not only with the
history of the Batetela that we were concerned, and Okitu soon learned
to trust us sufficiently to confide in us many things about the habits
of his people which he would never have told to any one connected with
the Government. We freely discussed the question of cannibalism. It
appears that among the Batetela, as among the Basonge, the practice
of eating human flesh is rapidly dying out, but a few years ago it
was extremely prevalent. Prisoners of war and enemies slain on the
battlefield were invariably eaten, and numbers of the Batetela tribe
who had been convicted of murder were often handed over to some village
other than their own to expiate their crimes by serving as a meal to
their fellow-tribesmen. Even to this day certain loathsome practices,
survivals of cannibalism, obtain at Mokunji which are too revolting to
European ears to be described here. In the old days it was the privilege
of the chief to maim and mutilate his subjects according to the dictates
of his own sweet will, but happily this custom has given way before the
advance of civilisation. We discussed with Okitu every possible subject
from the gruesome practices I have mentioned to such simple domestic
matters as to who is the actual owner of the crops and what are the
laws of inheritance. It appears that the food-stuffs grown on the soil
cultivated by the women belong actually to the wives, but they must feed
their husbands, for, as Okitu naively remarked, “A man does not love
his wife nearly so much when there is no food in the house.” As regards
inheritance we learned that among the Batetela, as among many African
peoples, widows are inherited according to the same law as the dead man’s
other household goods! During our stay at the factory we several times
visited Jadi’s village, and also interviewed many prominent natives,
taking every opportunity of checking Okitu’s statements and assuring
ourselves of their veracity. One of the men we questioned was quite a
remarkable personage. His name was Umbi Enungu, and he boasted that he
was the oldest living member of the Batetela tribe. What right he had
to make this statement it is, of course, quite impossible to ascertain,
but it is certain that he was very old indeed, so old that he could only
walk for a very short distance without resting, and required assistance
when rising from a sitting position. This latter infirmity turned out
to be rather a good thing for us. We one day played over to the old man
some phonograph records, including a newly made record in which Jadi had
made a few remarks concerning the history of his people. Umbi Enungu
was deeply interested in the songs to which we treated him, but when
he heard the record of Jadi’s speech his interest changed in a moment
to fury. Apparently Jadi had made some slight mistake with regard to
an incident which, though it had occurred in the dark ages, was still
fresh in the memory of old Enungu. This error filled the old man with
indignation. Seizing a spear which lay at hand, and hurling insults at
the head of Jadi and at the phonograph, he strove frantically to rise,
expressing his intention of smashing up a machine which could tell such
lies. Fortunately his age prevented his getting to his feet to carry out
his threats, and we quickly put a stop to the playing of the offending
record. The old fellow was then conducted to a shady spot where he could
sit down quietly and recover his composure. For some time he sat in
silence, making signs about his person with some magic seeds produced
from the cat’s-skin bag containing his “medicine,” without which he never
moved, and finally he departed evidently still much disturbed in mind. He
did condescend to visit us frequently after this incident, however, and
he contrived to extort from us a good number of presents, on the receipt
of which he would express his pleasure by feebly endeavouring to dance,
and by spitting freely in the direction of our feet.
[Illustration: AN OLD-FASHIONED BATETELA HUT.]
[Illustration: JADI AND SOME OF HIS WIVES.]
At the time of our visit to Mokunji the height of the grass, which is
not burnt off until about May, prevented our indulging in hunting, and
accordingly we brought back very little in the way of natural history
specimens from this country. As a matter of fact the list of big game
animals of the district is extraordinarily meagre. The antelope family
is represented by bush-bucks, duikers, and another beast smaller than
the bush-buck, a skin of which I was never able to see, so I cannot say
to what species it belongs; the red river hog is common round Mokunji,
and leopards are very numerous. Buffalo and elephant are conspicuous by
their absence, though a solitary buffalo bull was killed near the Lubefu
in 1907; it belonged to one of the small brown species of forest buffalo.
Owing to the scarcity of other prey leopards have taken to man-eating
with disastrous results to the villages between the Lubefu River and
Jadi’s capital. As many as five people—all of them women—were killed in
one day within a radius of ten miles from the Kasai Company’s factory,
and shortly before our visit a leopard had attacked a chief on the road
at sundown as he was returning home after a visit to the Company’s agent.
The animal had sprung upon the chief from the high grass by the roadside,
but upon becoming aware that he was attended by a considerable following,
it had left its victim on the ground little the worse for his adventure.
At Mokunji we were lucky enough to secure a living specimen of the
mysterious “Yuka,” which had so roused our curiosity at Batempa. Tempted
by the high price which Torday offered, the entire population of a hamlet
turned out one night and surrounded a tree in which the animal had been
heard to give vent to its weird cry; then two young warriors, evidently
anxious to display their courage, had climbed the tree and captured the
beast. It turned out to be a species of hyrax, which, though not unknown
to science, was represented in the Natural History Museum by one skin
only, sent home years ago by Emin Pasha. Its ferocity was just as much a
myth as its habit of climbing with its back to the tree! In less than
half-an-hour after its release from the basket in which it was brought
to us it was eating out of our hands. We obtained later on a second
living specimen of this hyrax, but both of them died before Hardy could
take them with him to Europe. In the Lubefu River crocodiles are said
to exist, but hippopotami are only to be found in it at its confluence
with the Sankuru, for the current of the Lubefu is too strong for these
animals; so strong indeed is the stream, and so narrow and winding its
course, that a whale-boat, well-manned with experienced paddlers, takes
nineteen days to ascend the river from Bena Dibele to the Government
station of Lubefu, a distance of only about one hundred miles. In places
the stream is so overhung by trees that it flows as through a tunnel
beneath their intertwining branches. The road from Mokunji to the station
of Lubefu crosses the river by one of those suspension bridges made of
creepers (known to the Belgians as “monkey bridges”) which the Batetela
are so skilful in building. The creepers are attached to trees on either
bank, and high railings on each side of the tight-rope-like bridge
prevent one from being hurled into the river when the structure sways
beneath one’s weight.
During our stay at Mokunji we not only made extensive collections for
the ethnographical department of the British Museum, but we were able
to procure a number of human skulls for the Royal College of Surgeons.
We experienced no difficulty in obtaining these, for the inhabitants
did not hesitate to collect for us the skulls of those who had perished
in the bush from the deadly sleeping sickness. When a person is known
to have this terrible disease the Batetela expel him from the village,
placing food at a certain spot each day until the fact that the food is
not called for shows that the poor wretch’s sufferings are at an end.
We have met several of these unfortunates when on the march, one of
them a little girl in the last stage of the complaint, who presented
a most pitiful spectacle, and filled us with horror at the thought of
her terrible fate. But is not this primitive isolation, cruel as it may
seem, the only possible way by which savages can combat the spread of
sleeping sickness? The patient’s end must be horrible, that lonely death
in the bush, but it may be the means of saving the lives of hundreds in
the villages. The collecting of the skulls was the last piece of work
that we did at Mokunji, for we were afraid that to mention such an idea
as to purchase the bones of their dead might so offend the Batetela
as to prevent them from imparting to us a lot of the information with
regard to their manners and customs which we were so anxious to obtain.
This, however, did not turn out to be the case; in fact the prices we
paid for the skulls—after a large reward had been offered for the first
one or two—were lower than those asked for many of the other things
we purchased, so that we were enabled to send home quite a valuable
series of them to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. Our
ethnographical work having been completed as far as possible and our
collections made, we packed up the specimens (now amounting to several
hundred) and despatched them to the Sankuru on their way to Europe.
We then prepared to follow them, intending to proceed to Batempa and
thence descend the Sankuru to Lusambo. During our stay at Mokunji,
Commandant Gustin, the Commissioner of the District of Lualaba-Kasai,
had passed by on his way to his residence at Lusambo after an extended
tour through the eastern portion of his district, and Torday was anxious
to discuss with him one or two ethnographical subjects in which he was
greatly interested. We therefore determined to stay for a few days at
Lusambo. When we met the Commandant we laid before him the grievance of
the natives of Osodu, and we had the satisfaction of being instrumental
in the release of the father of our baby hosts, for the Commissioner
considered that the chief of Osodu could be safely set at liberty upon
the understanding that he must acknowledge the suzerainty of Jadi, which
he was now ready to do.
[Illustration: SOUNDING THE SIGNALLING GONG.]
Once again our march was to be rendered interesting by rumours of wars,
although, luckily for us, the trouble never reached the stage of actual
hostilities. Jadi and Kasongo Batetela fell out over the suzerainty
of two or three small villages situated upon their mutual frontier;
and, as neither chief would give way nor appeal to the Government for
arbitration, a breach of the peace seemed certain. Jadi beat his big war
drum at Mokunji and sent messages by gong, signalling to the outlying
villages to bid their warriors hold themselves in readiness to take the
field. This signalling was especially interesting to us, in that it
enabled us to see how perfectly a chief keeps in communication with his
army by means of the signalling gong. This instrument, of which I give
an illustration and of which specimens are now in the British Museum, is
made from a solid block of wood, hollowed out with a primitive form of
adze. It is hung round the drummer’s shoulder by a leather strap, and is
thus easily portable, and can be used in directing military operations
or for sending the chief’s orders while he is travelling. The words are
transmitted by a series of beats, or rather sharp “taps,” of a couple of
rubber-headed sticks. The sounds thus produced, though not very loud,
are very penetrating, so that messages can be easily distinguished at a
distance of several miles, and when passed on from one village to another
(there are always plenty of people able to use the gong) can be sent all
over the countryside in an incredibly short space of time. The perfection
to which this system of signalling has been brought by the Batetela
astonished us very much, and we put it to every test that we could
think of. We gonged messages from the Kasai Company’s factory to Jadi’s
village, always receiving a reply which indicated that our message had
been correctly sent, and Torday and I, each accompanied by a signaller,
on several occasions carried on conversations at a distance of over a
quarter of a mile apart—far enough to test the efficacy of the system.
Altogether the Batetela gong is one of the most remarkable instruments
in Central Africa, and, where villages are fairly close together and so
facilitate the transmission of messages, it could easily be made use of
as a substitute to the telegraph lines, which, of course, have not yet
made their appearance so far in the interior. But although Jadi (and for
that matter Kasongo Batetela) had such perfect means of summoning their
warriors and of directing the movements of the various contingents from
outlying villages, their dispute came to an end without bloodshed. Jadi,
the ex-soldier, the veteran of the Arab wars, the leader of so many
warriors armed with guns—Jadi, the more powerful chief of the two, gave
way. Why? Simply because his people, though in superior numbers, felt
that they with their muzzle-loaders would be no match for Kasongo’s old
warriors, who were renowned for their accuracy of aim with the poisoned
arrow. The young Batetela loves to take the road with his gun (usually
carried by his wife or child), and he uses the weapon too in hunting;
but he realises the superiority of the veteran archer when it comes to
the serious business of the battlefield. A good bow used by a man who
has been brought up to its use since childhood is always better than an
inferior muzzle-loader in the hands of a native whose ideas of shooting
are usually extremely rudimentary. Accordingly, the more primitive tribes
are by no means necessarily so easy to tackle as their neighbours who
have attained that state of “civilisation” which includes a gun as one
of its outward signs. Our journey to the Sankuru, therefore, passed off
without incident, and we reached Batampa well pleased with the result of
our researches among the Batetela and with the collections we had made
for the British Museum. We spent only a few days in the Kasai Company’s
factory by the riverside, and as soon as our old friend the _Velde_
appeared, bringing stores and a European mail from Dima, we embarked in
her and departed for Lusambo at noon one day in the end of February 1908.