294 FROM ISHOGO TO ASHANGO-LAND. Chap. XV. 



which have modified the surface of the land in 

 northern countries can have taken place here nnder 

 the equator, but I think it only proper to relate 

 what I saw with my own eyes. 



I called three of the elders to my hut, and gave 

 them each a present, including a red cap apiece. 

 The people said they would have a dance in the 

 evening, in order to show me how the Ishogos danced. 

 I am now quite friendly with them all, and they 

 seem to like me and my people. 



June 12nd. We left Mokenga at twenty minutes 

 past eleven a.m. Before we started, a number of 

 women brought us little parcels of ground-nuts to 

 eat on the road ; they really seemed sorry to see us 

 depart. Soon after leaving the village we began 

 again to ascend rising ground. After we had been 

 an hour on the road, my aneroids gave an altitude 

 of 738 feet. About three or four miles from Mo- 

 kenga we crossed a little stream called Dongon. At 

 an Ishogo village named Diamba, which we passed 

 about two o'clock, I saw two heads of the gorilla 

 (male and female) stuck on two poles placed under 

 the village tree in the middle of the street. In ex- 

 planation of this I may mention here tliat in almost 

 every Ishogo and Ashango village which I visited 

 there was a large tree standing about the middle of 

 the main street, and near the mbuiti or idol-house of 

 the village. The tree is a kind of Ficus, with large, 

 thick, and glossy leaves. It is jilanted as a sapling 

 when the village is first built, and is considered to 

 bring good luck to the inhabitants as a talisman : if 

 the sapling lives, the villagers consider the omen a 



