CH. xiTi] CONGO TRADERS 377 



doors of the room in which the hig presents are arran^red, 

 those for each child on a separate table. 



Forty miles from the coast the elephant grass began 

 to disappear. Tlie hills became somewhat higher ; there 

 were thorn-trees and stately royal palms of great height, 

 their stems swollen and bulging at the top, near the 

 fronds. Parasitic ferns, with leaves as large as cabbage 

 leaves, grew on the brandies of the acacias. One kind 

 of tree sent down from its branches to tlie ground roots 

 which grew into thick trunks. There were wide, 

 shallow marshes, and altliough the grass was tall, it 

 was no longer abov^e a man's head. Kermit and I 

 usually got two or three hours' hunting each day. We 

 killed singsing, waterbuck, bushbuck, and bohor reed- 

 buck. The reedbuck differed slightly from those of 

 East Africa ; in places they were plentiful, and they 

 were not wary. W^e also killed several hartebeests— a 

 variety of the Jackson's hartebeest, being more highly 

 coloured, with black markings. 1 killed a very hand- 

 some harnessed bushbuck ram. It was rather bigger 

 than a good-sized white-tail buck, its brilliant red coat 

 beautifully marked with rows of white spots, its twisted 

 black horns sharp and polished. It seemed to stand 

 about halfway between the dark-coloiu'ed bushbuck 

 rams of East and South Africa and the beautifully 

 marked harnessed antelope rams of the West Coast 

 forests. The ewes and young rams showed the harness 

 markings even more plainly, and, as with all bushbuck, 

 were of small size compared to the old rams. These 

 bushbuck were found in tall grass, where the ground 

 was wet, instead of in the thick bush where tlieir East 

 African kinsfolk spend the daytime. 



At the bushbuck camp we met a number of porters 

 returning from the Congo, where they had been with an 



