HUNTING AND HUNTED IN BELGIAN CONGO 



to my signal fires and red blankets mounted on poles 

 waved aloft by the boys, the boat was seen to head 

 for the bank below our camp. It proved to be the 

 Good Intent, laden with ivory and about twenty native 

 men, women, and children. The white passenger was 

 a Greek trader, coming down from the Congo. From 

 him I learnt that Doctor Rendle had been ill at Nimule 

 with malarial fever. The people on the Congo bank 

 were greatly excited at the advent of my visitors in their 

 craft. Being afraid that we should attack them, they 

 even drew their canoes out of the water and hid them 

 in the grass. However, the Good Intent left in the early 

 hours of the next morning. Seeing that, the Shinzis, 

 as the natives in this part of Africa are usually called, 

 that is the raw or savage communities, were not inclined 

 to ferry us over. I went along to a chief on our side of 

 the river, "Okele," I think his name was, and arranged 

 for his people to take us across. His canoes put out 

 and paddled along the Uganda bank until abreast of our 

 camp. On seeing this, the Shinzis yelled across the 

 water, agreeing to do the work that I required of them 

 yesterday. Okele's canoemen, on seeing the Shinzis, 

 were frightened, so I dismissed them. At the same 

 moment a canoe shot out from the opposite bank, and 

 on reaching us the Shinzis agreed, after some bargaining, 

 to carry the safari across. To prevent any trickery I 

 went with Pishi in the first trip over, and found every 

 one in a great state of excitement. A rumour had 

 reached them that large numbers of white men were 

 coming down to their country from the north. 



" Yes," they said, " we do not want the white men ; 

 they will want all our food, and then they will bring 

 askaris, who will kill us. Why are they coming ? ' And 

 they shook their heads in dread and fear, for they 

 remembered the misrule of their country in former days. 

 They would not tell me how the news had reached them. 



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