INTRODUCTION 



would rend the stillness around with frenzied shouts, 

 and whistling alarm signals, and in a second the whole 

 population would fly pell-mell into the cover of forest 

 bush and grass. Sometimes as many as six hundred 

 people would become panic-stricken at our approach, 

 clouds of dust would rise up, dogs would bark, and 

 children howl with fright like their elders ; the weak 

 would fall and be trodden down by the press behind, 

 spears, bows, knives, quivers, and what not, all would 

 be left ; they heeded nothing so long as they could reach 

 the cover that they sought. 



In isolated cases some of the people had never before 

 seen a white face, and this alone would account for such 

 behaviour ; but it was significant that after Salem, our 

 man who marched in front of the expedition, had dis- 

 carded an old Belgian jersey — blue, with a yellow star 

 on the front — the people seldom resented our approach 

 or exhibited any signs of fear. 



In the eyes of the Congolese, a gun is a very terrible 

 thing, and most of them took it for granted that we 

 were seeking two-legged and not four-legged game. 



The people, when left alone, are supremely happy in 

 their own peculiar way. Gold is not yet their god as it 

 is fast becoming ours. Heathen they may be, yet it is 

 a mistake to think that the Fetish worshipper is beyond 

 the pale of justice and pity and that the Cross can do 

 no wrong. When I see in the papers such headlines as 

 " Terrible retribution," " The floodgates of battle were 

 opened," " Human abattoirs," etc., and watch a Christian 

 world gloating over such inglorious victories against a 

 people whose sole crime is the love they have for their 

 homes, whether by forest, desert, or plain, I am inclined 

 to think that Christ is to us but a name and not yet a 

 power. Christianity must be getting lower and lower. 



This is hardly the place to set down my stories of 

 campaign and native war in Southern Africa. Or of the 



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