364 AFRICA SPEAKS 



across a pathway. Shortly some men arrived carrying 

 spears and bows and arrows. Hanging from a pole, 

 carried between two of them, was a small antelope. The 

 people in this district trap most of their animal food 

 by placing snares across the game trails and driving 

 whatever they can into them. 



After two hundred fifty miles through deep forest, 

 we arrived at the Bomu River, to find that the streams 

 were getting wider and the ferries smaller. It was 

 dusk, and as we stood on the Belgian side gazing toward 

 the French Congo beyond this river — which is here 

 wider than the Ohio at Cincinnati — we were wonder- 

 ing how long it would take to build a raft large enough 

 to float the trucks across, when some natives came into 

 view poKng a crude affair made of three dugouts with 

 rough planks secured on them. It did not give an 

 impression of being exactly safe, but was better than 

 nothing; so we took a chance and sailed. Several trips 

 landed the expedition at Bangassou and there we met 

 some lonesome Frenchmen who treated us to wine and 

 a very fine dinner. They were surprised to find that 

 we had come aU the way from the east coast by motor 

 and assured us that nobody else had ever done so. 



After an enjoyable evening with the Frenchmen, 

 three of us went to retrieve one of the trucks wliich had 

 shpped off a narrow bridge into a deep gully. In order 

 to get it out, we needed a heavy plank, so strolled down 

 to the ferry landing to borrow one. While we were 

 struggling up the bank with this huge timber, a man 

 rushed out from a near-by bungalow, waving his arms 

 and shouting to us in a mixture of French and what- 

 ever the native language is. Joe tried to match 

 gestures with this human windmill, while Jones and I 



