not look restful, nor these Fans personally pleasant. Every
man among them— no women showed— was armed with a gun,
and they loosened their shovel-shaped knives in their sheaths
as they came, evidently regarding a fight quite as imminent as
we did. They drew up about twenty paces from us in silence.
Pagan and Gray Shirt, who had joined him, held out their
unembarrassed hands, and shouted out the name of the Fan
man they had said they were friendly with: “ Kiva-Kiva.
The Fans stood still and talked angrily among themselves for
some minutes, and then, Silence said to me, “ It would be bad
palaver if Kiva no live for this place,” in a tone that conveyed
to me the idea he thought this unpleasant contingency almost
a certainty. The Passenger exhibited unmistakable symptoms
of wishing he had come by another boat. I got up from
my seat in the bottom of the canoe and leisurely strolled
ashore, saying- to the line of angry faces “ M’boloani ” in an
unconcerned way, although I well knew it was etiquette
for them to salute first. They grunted, but did not commit
themselves further. A minute after they parted to allow a
fine-looking, middle-aged man, naked save for a twist of dirty
cloth round his loins and a bunch of leopard and wild cat
tails hung from his shoulder by a strip of leopard skin, to
come forward. Pagan went for him with a rush, as if he were
going to clasp him to his ample bosom, but holding his hands
just off from touching the Fan’s shoulder in the usual way,
while he said in Fan, “ Don’t you know me, my beloved Kiva?
Surely you have not forgotten your old friend ? ” Kiva
grunted feelingly, and raised up his hands and held them just
off touching Pagan, and we breathed again. Then Gray
Shirt made a rush at the crowd and went through great demonstrations
of affection with another, gentleman whom he
recognised as being a Fan friend of his own, and whom he had
not expected to meet here. I looked round to see if there was.
not any Fan from the Upper Ogow6 whom I knew to go for,
but could not see one that I could on the strength of a previous
acquaintance, and on their individual merits I did not
feel inclined to do even this fashionable imitation embrace.
Indeed I must say that never— even in a picture book— have
I seen such a set of wild wicked-looking savages as those we
faced this night, and with whom it was touch-and-go for twenty
of the longest minutes I have ever lived, whether we fought
for our lives, I was going to say, but it would not have
been even for that, but merely for the price of them.
Peace having been proclaimed, conversation became general.
Gray Shirt brought his friend up and introduced him to me,
and we shook hands and smiled at each other in the conventional
way. Pagan’s friend, who was next introduced, was
more alarming, for he held his hands for half a minute just
above my elbows without quite touching me, but he meant
well; and then we all ^disappeared into a brown mass of
humanity and a fog of noise. You would have thought, from
the violence and vehemence of the shouting and gesticulation,
that we were going to be forthwith torn to shreds ; but not a
single hand really touched me, and as I, Pagan, and Gray
Shirt went up to the town in the midst of the throng, the
crowd opened in front and closed in behind, evidently half
frightened at my appearance. The row when we reached the
town redoubled in volume from the fact that the ladies, the
children, and the dogs joined in. Every child in the place as
soon as it saw my white face let a howl out of it as if it had
seen his Satanic Majesty, horns, hoofs, tail and all, and fled
into the nearest hut, headlong, and I feai, from the continuance
of the screams, had fits. The town was exceedingly filth y^ 1
the remains of the crocodile they had been eating the week
before last, and piles of fish offal, and remains of an elephant,
hippo or manatee— I really can’t say which, decomposition
was too far advanced— united to form a most impressive
stench. The bark huts are, as usual in a Fan town, in
unbroken rows; but there are three or four streets here, not
one only, as in most cases. The palaver house is in the innermost
street, and there we went, and noticed that the village
view was not in the direction in which we had come, but across
towards the other side of the lake. I told the Ajumba to
explain we wanted hospitality for the night, and wished to hire
three carriers for to-morrow to go with us to the Rembwe.
For an hour and three-quarters. by my watch I stood in
the suffocating, smoky, hot atmosphere listening to, but only
faintly understanding, the war of words and gesture that raged