384 JOURNEY TO THE COAST. Chap. XIX 



On leaving Igoumbiewe took a different road from 

 that which we had followed in our eastward journey. 

 After about three hours' walk, we emerged on the 

 open grassy hills which form the eastern boundary 

 of the Apono country. After marching past nume- 

 rous Apono villages on the western side of these 

 hills, we reached in the afternoon the village of 

 Mokaba. On the road, in a solitary part of the 

 prairie, we passed by a tall pole with the head of a 

 man stuck at the top, to all appearance quite recently 

 placed there. My men passed the place with a quiver 

 of horror, for they guessed what this gliastly object 

 meant. We were told by our guide that it was the 

 head of one of the chiefs, who had been decapitated 

 on suspicion of being a wizard — another victim to 

 the horrid superstitions of these people. The head 

 had been placed on a pole by the road-side as a 

 warning to all who approached Mokaba. 



I was glad to find that the palm-wine season was 

 now over, and the Mokaba villagers constrained to 

 be much more sober than they were on my former 

 visit. The palm-trees had nearly finished blooming, 

 and the ascending sap, which supplies the fermentable 

 liquor, no longer flowed in sufficient quantity. My 

 old friend Kombila was the only one who had liquor 

 enough to get drunk upon, and he was so harmless 

 over his cups that I had no annoyance from him. 



Late in the afternoon I took a walk into the prairie, 

 which extends for a long distance in the neighbour- 

 hood of Mokaba. I cannot express the pleasure I 

 felt in being once more in open country. I seemed 

 to breathe freer ; the eye wandered far away over a 



