HUNTING AND HUNTED IN BELGIAN CONGO 



would inspire confidence, so it was useless to ask them 

 to join us. 



The Osso, which is a large river at its junction with 

 the Nile, was here, near its source and within a few miles 

 of Mount Wati, only knee-deep and some twenty yards 

 across, with its banks hidden in a wealth of trees and bush. 



In passing from the Osso to the Insa we traversed 

 through country not unlike that around Matlock, hills 

 and dales all covered with beautiful short green grass. 

 It was thickly populated, little groups of huts were 

 scattered irregularly over the country, and large fields 

 were under cultivation. The people themselves were a 

 repulsive, evil-countenanced community, in many of 

 them every other tooth in the front of both upper and 

 lower jaws was missing, while those that remained were 

 either chipped or filed into a V shape. Their lips, when 

 rolled back in smiles, revealed a picture that was horrible 

 to gaze upon ! The extraction of the teeth not required 

 in this style of decoration is performed by means of 

 chiselling with a piece of iron, and the pointing up 

 of the remaining incisors, which have the appearance of 

 the edge of a handsaw, is done with the same primitive 

 instrument. Their appearance is rendered all the more 

 repulsive by the blackness of the teeth, the enamel 

 having been destroyed in the process of chipping and 

 filing. This extraordinary method of treating the teeth 

 is peculiar to cannibals, which I have since proved these 

 particular people to be. 



On arriving at the second Legworo village before 

 reaching the Osso, it appeared to be deserted. Not a 

 soul was to be seen anywhere, dogs, chickens, and every- 

 thing had vanished, but they had overlooked the fact 

 that the fires with curling columns of smoke would show 

 us that they were not far off. The village stood on a 

 clearing some 200 yards square surrounded by tall grass, 

 and we knew that within a very short distance from 



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