38 CHIEFS & CITIES OF CENTRAL AFRICA 



will obtain leave to do this. . . . All merchandise 

 passing through the ceded territories and by the Benue- 

 Mao Kabi route is free from any impost." 



It was through this ceded territory that our route 

 now lay, and conducted by its gentle, uncivilised in- 

 habitants, the Mundonng carriers, we set forth from 

 Golombe. 



The village street led into the Mao Bulo (mao = river), 

 and one after another our horses splashed through it ; 

 but the water had already fallen so much that by 

 keeping our legs well tucked up we hardly got wet 

 at all. 



The boys carried the horses' tails, which in my 

 ignorance I imagined to be for the sake of the animals, 

 so, when I saw some carriers disappear into holes in 

 the bottom of the next stream, I directed Moussa to 

 abandon this custom and lead my horse. He did so, 

 and its tail hung unsupported in the water : when we 

 emerged it was swished from side to side, covering me 

 and my skirt with stripes of liquid mud. On the 

 farther side we walked into a tangle of rank under- 

 growth, through which, though we could not see it, 

 there was a path. It was hard going, the grass met 

 above our heads, and its seeds flew into our eyes. 

 Even so I preferred walking, because my horse had 

 many of the characteristics of a mule, and invariably 

 sidled into some pitfall, or, at best, into a prickly 

 acacia. Every few hundred yards, if not before, a 

 marshy piece of ground would necessitate remounting, 

 though the swamps, which increased in length and 

 depth as we entered French Ubangi, were never so 

 bad but that our horses could take us through them. 



Whenever the neighbourhood of a village was 



