HUNTING AND HUNTED IN BELGIAN CONGO 



he proudly informed me that he was very clever in 

 tracking elephants. I asked him who the white man 

 was with whom he had worked. 



" Ah," he replied, " he was an old man, for on his 

 face he wore long hair, his eyes were small, he was kind 

 to me, and I liked him." 



" Did the white man shoot many elephants ? " 



" No ; he filled boxes in the river with sand," so I 

 concluded that he had been with a prospector. 



" Where did he go ? " I asked. 



" He has gone far away," flourishing his hand in the 

 direction of Mahagi. 



I tried to get the fellow to join me, but when I told 

 him that I was shortly going across into the Belgian 

 Congo, he shook his head and replied — 



" The people there are bad, the black men eat you, 

 yes ! they are bad, fight all day and night, all people 

 die in the Congo. Did not Amali, our friend, go with the 

 white man long ago, and we have not seen him again?" 



This last sentence was directed to his friends standing 

 by, and a chorus of approval went up instantly. I tried 

 to convince him that he would be safe with me, but I 

 might as well have spoken to a stone, he spoke hurriedly 

 of all sorts of rumours that had reached him concerning 

 that country beyond the hills in the west. No, he had 

 plenty to eat where he was, and warned me against 

 going. 



The natives in the Enclave are full of queer stories 

 concerning the interior. Superstitious to a degree, they 

 are almost all afraid to travel from one village to another 

 for fear of attack by the people who live within a few 

 miles of their own village. Intertribal quarrels are not 

 unknown, and I have seen traces of more than one affair 

 having been settled in deadly earnest. 



On the next day's march I came across the fresh 

 tracks of elephant leading to the south-east. We followed 



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