A CAMP AMONG CANNIBALS 



and appeared to be in good circumstances. The chief 

 and other prominent members of the village were arrayed 

 in old Belgian jerseys, blue with a large white or yellow 

 star, and baggy cloth trousers of blue cotton. If only 

 their faces had been whitened they would have looked 

 very like clowns in a circus ! Large conical grass hats, 

 old felts, and fez caps were worn with great pride. Some 

 of them carried old flintlock guns, many of which were 

 devoid of stocks, and the children used them as play- 

 things. Old bandoliers and pouches were strung around 

 their bodies. Powder flasks swung on grass cords from 

 their necks and dangled between their shoulder blades. 

 How they came by these military 7 accessories is open to 

 question. We made a few trips after elephants in the 

 neighbourhood and had succeeded in getting up to a 

 herd, when one of the villagers broke into a loud talk, 

 at which the herd, numbering some 200 elephants, 

 crashed away past us to the west. Trees dropped right 

 and left, clouds of dust rose high up as they thundered 

 away through the forest. 



On the third day of our stay we travelled far from 

 the village, and had to return in the darkness over rock- 

 strewn paths and through swamps that buzzed with flies 

 and reeked with the fetid exhalations of putrid grass 

 and plants. Thorn bushes tore open the flesh of our 

 bodies, arms and legs. Strange animals and birds flitted 

 across our path and lent ghostly shadows as through the 

 dense panoply of leaves and vines there penetrated the 

 silvery light of the moon. Troops of monkeys scampered 

 off in the trees in a great state of excitement and dismay ; 

 around the bushes and trees there swarmed millions of 

 fireflies, and glow-worms glittered like sparkling diamonds. 

 Now and again we came upon open chambers of forest 

 connected by galleries of creepers, while bats with great 

 wings flitted to and fro or hung from the branches of 

 the great trees whose trunks were hidden in a mass of 



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