HUNTING AND HUNTED IN BELGIAN CONGO 



One boy had an old dress coat on, but alas ! it had 

 seen its days, and seemed on the point of dropping to 

 pieces ; there were great holes in the shoulders, and one 

 of the tails hung by a thread. During the whole trip, 

 I do not remember seeing the boy with the coat off his 

 back. Everywhere, day or night, rain or sunshine, 

 wading neck-high through flooded rivers, the garment 

 was always in evidence. Like most natives all over 

 Africa, he was always smiling or laughing, nothing worried 

 him. Life for this semi-savage boy was one laugh from 

 morn to night. The carriers of Central Africa take all 

 their worldly possessions with them when on safari ; 

 sometimes it is only a blanket, a native pipe, a piece of 

 tobacco wrapped up in a leaf, and a sleeping mat of grass. 

 Add to these a stout stick and you have a picture of a boy 

 on safari. With his sixty-pound load on his head he will 

 travel up hill and down dale, laughing and singing, 

 shouting the customary greeting to passers-by. Sharp- 

 edged pebbles have no terrors for his bare feet ; he ascends 

 winding paths, makes steep, treacherous descents, brush- 

 ing his way through dense thorn bushes, scratched and 

 bleeding from head to foot. His body is bathed in 

 perspiration— yes, he smells at times ! Give him ten 

 rupees a month and play the game with him. If you 

 make a promise to a native, keep it to the letter. Some 

 people are apt to lose control of themselves where native 

 women are concerned ; remember, nothing tends to 

 lessen the prestige of the white man more than im- 

 morality. In the eyes of the uncivilized native this is 

 a crime. Among several tribes of the Congo, cannibals 

 and others, this offence is punishable by death. Having 

 travelled all over South Africa, I make bold to say that 

 had the white man left the native woman unmolested 

 we should not have heard so much as we do to-day about 

 white women being raped by Kaffirs. This may furnish 

 food for reflection to manv whom I have met between 



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