saying the price for pine-apples is one leaf of tobacco, but I
explained I was not buying. Ngouta turned up with my tea,
so I went inside, and had it on the bed. The door-hole was
entirely filled with a mosaic of faces, but no one attempted
to come in. All the time the carrier palaver went on without
cessation, and I went out and offered to take Gray Shirt’s and
Pagan s place, knowing they must want their chop, but they
refused relief, and also said I must not raise the price ; I was
offering too big a price now, and if I once rise the Fan will only
think I will keep on rising, and so make the palaver longer to
talk. “ How long does a palaver usually take to talk round
here ? ” I ask. “ The last one I talked,” says Pagan, “ took
three weeks, and that was only a small price palaver.”
“ Well,” say I, “ my price is for a start to-morrow— after then
I have no price— after that I go away.” Another hour however
sees the jam made, and to my surprise I find the three
richest men in this town of M’fetta have personally taken up
the contract Kiva my host, Fika a fine young fellow, and
Wiki, another noted elephant hunter. These three Fans, the
four Ajumba and the Igalwa, Ngouta, I think will be enough.
Moreover I fancy it safer not to have an overpowering percentage
of Fans in the party, as I know we shall have
considerable stretches of uninhabited forest to traverse ; and
the Ajumba say that thé Fans will kill people, i.e., the black
traders who venture into their country, and cut them up inter
neat pieces, eat what they want at the time, and smoke the
rest of the bodies for future use. Now I do not want to arrive
at the Rembwe in a smoked condition, even should my fragments
be neat, and I am going in a different direction to what
I said I was when leaving Kangwe, and there are so many
ways of accounting for death about here— leopard, canoe
capsize, elephants, &c.— that even if I were traced well,
nothing could be done then, anyhow— so will only take three
Fans. One must diminish dead certainties to the level of
sporting chances along here, or one can never get on.
No one, either Ajumba or Fan, knew the exact course we
were to take. The Ajumba had never been this way before_
the way for black traders across being viâ Lake Ayzingo, the
way Mr. Goode of the American Mission once went, and the
Fans said they only knew the way to a big Fan town called
Efoua, where no white man or black trader had yet been.
There is a path from there to the Rembwd they knew, because
the Efoua people take their trade all to the Rembwe. They
would, they said, come with me all the way if I would guarantee
them safety if they “ found war ” on the road. This I agreed to
do, and arranged to pay off at Hatton and Cookson’s sub-factory
on the Rembwe, and they have “ Look my mouth and. it be
sweet, so palaver done set.” Every load then, by the light of
the bush lights held by the women, we arranged. I had to
unpack my bottles of fishes so as to equalise the weight
of the loads. Every load is then made into a sort of cocoon
with bush rope.
I was left in peace at about 11.30 P.M., and clearing off the
clothes from the bench threw myself down and tried to get
some sleep, for we were to start, the Fans said, before dawn.
Sleep impossible— mosquitoes ! lice !!— so at 12.40 I got up
and slid aside my bark door. I found Pagan asleep under his
mosquito bar outside, across the doorway, but managed to get
past him without rousing him from his dreams of palaver
which he was still talking aloud, and reconnoitred the town. The
inhabitants seemed to have talked themselves quite out and
were sleeping heavily. I went down then to our canoe and found
it safe, high up among the Fan canoes on the stones, and then I
slid a small Fan canoe off, and taking a paddle from a
cluster stuck in the sand, paddled out on to the dark lake.
It was a wonderfully lovely quiet night with no light save that
from the stars. One immense planet shone pre-eminent in
the purple sky, throwing a golden path down on to the
still waters. Quantities of big fish sprung out of the water,
their glistening silver-white scales flashing so that they look
like slashing swords. Some bird was making a long, low boom-
booming sound away on the forest shore. I paddled leisurely
across the lake to the shore on the right, and seeing crawling
on the ground some large glow-worms, drove the canoe on to
the bank among some hippo grass, and got out to get them.
While engaged on this hunt I felt the earth quiver under
my feet, and heard a soft big soughing sound, and looking
round saw I had dropped in on a hippo banquet. I made