a mutual friendship arising between us. I admire him
sincerely. His personal appearance, his grand manner, the
regular way in which he orders his life, going down regularly
on to one particular stone at the river’s brink to rtiake
his toilet; attending every meal during the day ; and going to
roost on one particular door-top, commands admiration and
respect. But to me he behaved cruelly. He bullied me out
of food at meal times, always winding up with a fight, holding
on to my finger with his beak like a vice. I know he regards
me as a defeated slave and took as mere due service my
many rescues of him from behind a mirror, which hung tilted
from the wall and behind which he used constantly to fall,
dazzled by the vision of his own beauty as he flew up in front
of the glass. There is another low-down pigeon domesticated
at Talagouga, but he was a nobody, and Monsieur let him
know it, in spite of several rebellions on his part. And there
were also two very small, very black kittens which were being
carefully, but alas unavailingly nursed, for their mother had
abandoned them.
M. Forget did not think I should have much chance
of getting fish for specimens, because he said, although the
Fans catch plenty, they do not care to sell them, as they are
the main article of food in this foodless region, still he would
try and persuade them to bring them to me, and so successful
were his efforts that that afternoon several Fans turned
up with specimens. For these I gave, as usual when opening
a trade in a district, fancy prices, a ruse that proved so
successful here that I was soon at my wits’ end for bottles and
spirit— trade gin I might have got, but there is not sufficient
alcohol in trade gin to preserve specimens in. Again M. Forget
came to the rescue and let me have a bottle of alcohol out of
the dispensary.
I got a fearful fright during my second night at Talagouga.
I went to bed quite lulled into a'sense of security by the
mosquitolessness of the previous night. I was aroused between
2 and 3 o’clock A.M. by acute pain from punctured
wounds on the chest and the mosquito curtain completely
down and smothering me. My first fear was that I had
brought a mosquito or so of the Lembarene strain up to
Talagouga with me, who had just recovered from the journey
and were having their evening meal. I fought my way out of
the mosquito-curtain and trod on a cold flabby thing which
kindly said “ Croak ”— introducing itself as a harmless frog, and
dispelling fear number two, namely that it was a snake. I then
had a sporting hunt for matches in the inky darkMupset half the
i room before I found them, but when this was done, and I got the
i candle alight, I found a big black cat sitting smiling on my bed,
I and conjecturing she was the bereaved mother of those afflicted,
I deserted, kittens, I got her off, and tied up the mosquito-bar to
I the ceiling again, and then took her in with me under it to
I finish my night’s re s t; for I feared if I left her outside
I she would cause another tender awakening of memories
■ of those Lembarene mosquitoes. The frog, having got his
I wind again, flip-flapped about the floor all night, croak, croak-
I ing to his outdoor relations about the unprovoked outrage that
K had been committed on him.
I spent the succeeding days in buying fish from the natives,
■who brought it in quantities, mostly of two sorts, and of
■ course wanted enormous prices for i t ; but I confess I rather
■ enjoy the give-and-take fun of bartering against their extor-
■tion, and my trading with them introduced us to each other
■so that when we met in the course of the long climbing walks
I I used to take beetle-hunting in the bush behind the mission
■station, we knew about each other, and did not get much
■shocked or frightened.
I That forest round Talagouga was one o f the most difficult
I bits of country to get about in I ever came across, for it was
■ dense and there were no bush paths. No Fan village wants
p to walk to another Fan village for social civilities, and all their
■ trade goes up and down the river in canoes. No doubt some
I miles inland there are bush paths, but I never struck one, so
■they must be pretty far away. Neither did I come across any
■ villages in the forest, they seem all to be on the river bank
1 round here.
The views from the summits of the abruptly shaped hills
I round Talagouga are exceedingly grand, and give one a good
■|dea of the trend of the Sierra del Cristal range in this district |
■|o the east, the higher portions of the ranges showed, just