F A N S .
CH A P T ER XII
. FROM NCOVI TO ESOON
Concerning the way in which the voyager goes from the island of M’fetta
to no one knows exactly where, in doubtful and bad company, and of
what this led to and givinglalso some accounts of the Great Forest
and of those people that live therein.
I WILL not bore you w ith my diary in detail regarding our
land journey, because the water-washed little volume attributive
to this period is mainly full of reports of law cases,
for reasons hereinafter to be stated ; and at night, when passing
through this bit of country, I was usually too tired to do anything
more than make an entry such a s : “ 5 S., 4 R. A., N.E
Ebony. T. 1— 50, &c., &c.”— entries that require amplification
to explain their significance, and I will proceed to explain.
Our first day’s march was a very long one. Path in the
ordinary acceptance of the term there was none. Hour after
hour, mile after mile, we passed on, in the under-gloom of
the great forest. The pace made by the Fans, who are infinitely
the most rapid Africans I have ever come across,
severely tired the Ajumba, who are canoe men, and who had
been as fresh as paint, after their exceedingly long day’s
paddling from Arevooma to M’fetta. Ngouta, the Igalwa
interpreter, felt pumped, and said as much, very early in the
day. I regretted very much having brought him ; for, from a
mixture of nervous exhaustion arising from our M’fetta ex periences,
and a touch of chill he had almost entirely lost
his voice, and I feared would fall sick. The Fans were evidently
quite at home in the forest, and strode on over fallen
trees and rocks with an easy, graceful stride. What saved us
weaklings was the Fans’ appetites c every two hours they sat
down, and had a snack of a pound or so of meat and aguma
S