by securing Mr. MacTaggart’s head they would do this, and
also remove him from his then sphere of activity, the
prevention of gin smuggling. Their plan seems excellent in
theory; but I would not stake any money on its having
succeeded, even if they had been able to get him well away on
that door, which owing to his companions they were not. It
is almost as risky to be notoriously brave among a West
African tribe, as it is to be notoriously holy in the East. I
know another case in which they desired to collect the head
of a gentleman for their Ju Ju house. It showed in this case
a lofty devotion on their part, for it would have caused them
grave domestic inconvenience to have removed, at one fell
swoop, their entire set of tradesmen. Still more did it show
an artistic feeling of a high order ; for the head is a very handsome
one. Though they command my respect as a fellow
collector by the care they took in the attempt to collect it by
shooting the specimen in the legs, from other standpoints I
am very glad they have failed. This idea of the advantage
of having a big man’s head is somewhat like the Eastern one
that I remember reading of in one of Richard Burton’s
memoirs. He was once among some very pious Easterns
disguised as a dervish and enjoying such an amount of
admiration from them that he felt safe and content, until one
day a native friend came to him, secretly, and advised him
to fly, “ because the people of this city are desirous of having
the shrine of a very holy man among them— both because of
the spiritual advantages it bestows, and the temporal ones
arising from pilgrims coming to the town from other places
to visit it, and they have decided that you are so very
holy, and wise, and learned in the Koran that you will do."
Burton left.
But to return to that gorilla-land forest. All the rivers we
crossed on the first, second, and third day I was told went
into one or other of the branches of the Ogowd, showing that
the long slope of land between the Ogowe and the Rembwe is
towards the Ogowe. The stone of which the mountains were
composed was that same hard black rock that I had found on
the Sierra del Cristal, by the Ogowe rapids ; only hereabouts
there was not amongst it those great masses of white quartz,
which are so prominent a feature from Talagouga upwards in
the Ogowe valley; neither were the mountains anything like so
high, but they had the same abruptness of shape. They look
like very old parts of the same range worn down to stumps
by the disintegrating forces of the torrential rain and sun, and
the dense forest growing on them. Frost of course they had
not been subject to, but rocks, I noticed, were often being
somewhat similarly split by rootlets having got into some tiny
crevice, and by gradual growth enlarged it to a crack.
Of our troubles among the timber falls on these mountains
I have already spoken; and these were at their worst between
Efoua and Egaja. I had suffered a good deal from thirst
that day, unboiled water being my ibet and we were all very
nearly tired out with the athletic sports since leaving Efoua.
One thing only we knew about Egaja for sure, and that
was that not one of us had a friend there, and that it was a
town of extra evil repute, so we were not feeling very cheerful
when towards evening time we struck its outermost plantations,
their immediate vicinity being announced to us by
Silence treading full and fair on to a sharp ebony spike
driven into the narrow path and hurting himself. Fortunately,
after we passed this first plantation, we came upon a camp of
rubber collectors— four young men ; I got one of them to
carry Silence’s load and show us the way into the town,
when on we went into more plantations.
There is nothing more tiresome than finding your path
going into a plantation, because it fades out in the cleared
ground, or starts playing games with a lot of other little
paths that are running about amongst the crops, and no West
African path goes straight into a stream or a plantation, and
straight out the other side, so you have a nice time picking it
up again.
We were spared a good deal of fine varied walking by our
new friend the rubber collector ; for I noticed he led us out by
a path nearly at right angles to the one by which we had
entered. He then pitched into a pit which was half full of
thorns, and which he observed he did not know was there,
demonstrating that an African guide can speak the truth.
When he had got out, he handed back Silence’s load and got