22 HUNTING IN THE JUNGLE. 



all natural raconteurs. Besides, I much preferred not to 

 be obliged to use the decidedly unsatisfactory language of 

 signs with a man with whom I was to live some months. 



" He is everything desirable," my banker said. " I have 

 known him the last ten years, during which he has come 

 to barter ivory and skins with me, and he will not dare, 

 if only on business policy, to play you any very bad trick. 

 He is a liar, a thief, a bully, and a drunkard, like all of 

 them; but aside from that," with a smile, "you may 

 depend upon him." 



The portrait of the illustrious Thursday is a simple 

 matter, for the trader had faithfully outlined his moral 

 nature in his "recommendation." Physically he was a 

 tall, well-built fellow with tightly curling hair, his teeth 

 filed to a point, which gave him a singularly ferocious 

 appearance closely resembling a shark. He was dressed 

 in a belt, from which in front hung a leopard's skin, 

 while across his back were slung a single-barrelled gun 

 and a great iron-wood bow over six feet long. ^.Through 

 his belt was stuck an English axe, of which he was very 

 proud, and in the use of which he was extremely clever. 



He belonged to the cannibal race of Fans, which for 

 the last fifty years have little by little overrun the west 

 coast of Africa without any one knowing from what part 

 of the interior they come. Thursday pretended he had 

 become quite civilized by his intercourse with the whites, 

 and that he no longer ate human flesh, — leaving that, as 

 he said, " to the poor blacks who," with a superb ges- 



