58 THE BONDS OF AFRICA 



One lovely warm morning — it was again a 

 Sunday — we decided that as we had been making 

 excellent progress, we would give ourselves a 

 treat, and have a real slack holiday. So we put 

 up our little tent, bathed in the noble river, ate 

 macao berries, turned the donkeys loose, and 

 gloried in the knowledge that there was no 

 distant camp to make for at nightfall. 



That afternoon there came to our camp a 

 type of person who is very rare in poor, poverty- 

 stricken, heathen Africa — a native beggar. In 

 fact, this was the only one I have ever seen in 

 the untrammelled ways of the Dark Continent. 

 He was attended by a woman, and was quite 

 blind. As if to compensate him for the loss of 

 his eyesight. Nature had endowed him with 

 extraordinarily powerful lungs, and he bawled 

 and sang and bellowed in a truly indescribable 

 manner. He had, furthermore, a sort of reed 

 instrument that made a noise more like a flute 

 than a penny whistle, and more like bagpipes 

 than either. Evidently he expected us to ap- 

 preciate his music, for after he had made the most 

 horrible din imaginable, he was led to us and 

 begged for money. We were much annoyed at 

 this disturbance of the peace and quiet of that 

 lovely, lazy day, and refused to give him anything 

 in consequence. He thereupon retired a few yards 

 and recommenced his symphonies of discord. 

 Then again he set up a plaintive, mournful squeal 

 for alms, and in anger we at last bade him "get 

 out of it." The blind beggar and his woman crept 

 away, but, no doubt as a kind of vengeance, he 

 kept up his horrible din for long afterwards, and 

 L. and I were sincerely glad when he went away 

 to his village chattering and jabbering like an 

 outraged ape. 



