CHAPTER II. 



I MEET THURSDAY. 



HAD a letter of credit on a trader in the town, 

 and at onr first interview told him of m}^ in- 

 tention of passing five or six months in the 

 interior to complete my natural history collections. He 

 promised to get me a guide on whose faithfulness I 

 might rely. And sure enough, a few days later he sent 

 me a strapping great fellow as black as the ace of 

 spades. He bore the euphonious name of N'Otooue, and 

 agreed, for the modest sum of ten cents per day, to guide 

 me through forest, jungle, and swamp as far, if I liked, 

 as the Mozambique coast line ! Life was too short to 

 make use of a name like his ; and bearing in mind Robin- 

 son Crusoe's admirable example and the day on which 

 N'Otooue was presented to me, I nicknamed him Thurs- 

 day, — a title in which he learned to feel the greatest 

 pride after I had told him of great Thor's warlike attri- 

 butes. As Thursday, therefore, he will appear in future 

 in these pages. He talked English a little, and that was 

 a great thing for me, for it would allow me to enjoy the 

 stories he would be sure to tell, — his countrymen beino; 



