212 FROM THE NIGER TO THE NILE 



The collection of rubber and ivory is difficult owing to the 

 unsettled condition of the district, which is peopled by the 

 Munjia and Banda tribes. In December 1904, twenty-four 

 Senegalese were killed and eaten ; their heads were after- 

 wards found stuck up in a row with bits of rubber inserted 

 between the teeth by way of irony. 



The factory employs Sierra Leone " boys," who speak 

 English, to travel in the bush and buy rubber and ivory off 

 the natives. The natives collect the rubber in little balls 

 which are packed in long grass baskets. They are often 

 cunning enough to fill the centre of the balls with mud and 

 pieces of wood. With regard to the ivory, there is a large 

 amount lying buried in the country, but the chiefs will only 

 produce the smaller tusks, demanding, in exchange for the 

 bigger, guns which are forbidden by the Government ; con- 

 sequently the trade is pretty well at a standstill. 



Other articles of exchange that go well with the natives 

 are old-fashioned coachmen's liveries with crested buttons, 

 and old uniforms of British regiments. I remember one day 

 while at Fort Crampel a chief coming in with some food for 

 the post at the head of a file of naked men and women. He 

 was a comic sight dressed in nothing more than a red tunic, 

 which proclaimed him to be an honorary private of the 

 Essex Regiment. 



Fort Crampel is built at the foot of a steep, conical 

 iron-stone hill 200 ft. in height, from which a beautiful 

 spring of clear water flows, and here and there in its folds 

 grow wild banana-trees. From the top there is a splendid 

 panorama on all sides except the east over the endless bush. 

 Towards the south, through the uniform expanse, a darker 



