278 FROM THE NIGER TO THE NILE 



notes die away a great cry rises and spreads from one com- 

 pound to another : 



" The king drinks, the king drinks." 

 The drum used by these forest people is made of a log of 

 wood, 2 ft. long by Ij ft. deep, very skilfully hollowed out 

 through a narrow slit, a few inches long. It rests on four 

 legs and sometimes has handles at each end. The sound 

 of it is very beautiful echoing through the forest at night. 



The Madi inhabit the country between Amadi and 

 Surungu, and are to be found chiefly on the right bank, 

 extending into the interior as far as the country of the 

 Azandi. Following the custom that prevails with most of 

 the tribes of the Welle region, they paint patterns all over 

 their bodies with the black juice of the forest nut. The men 

 and boys are inseparable from a little musical instrument 

 which they may be heard twanging all day long in the village. 

 It is oval and belly-shaped, and there are four pieces of metal 

 attached at one end over a sounding hole on the face and 

 turned up at the other so that they can be twanged by the 

 thumbs of the player as he holds the instrument in his two 

 palms. It sounds very much hke a Jew's-harp. 



The Madi compress the heads of their female children by 

 binding them with string as close as the splicing on a cricket 

 bat, so that the foreheads are made to slope right back — 

 an effective precautionary measure for deaUng with woman's 

 suffrage I should think ! 



The possession of boats of our own gave us a great advan- 

 tage when we had a mind to explore the byways of the river, 

 and on our arrival at Surungu, we set out to make the passage 

 of the Guruba, a pretty little river which flows into the Welle 



