Our Last "Safari" 



holes to see through. The dress is finished off by a leopard 

 tail being fixed to a belt behind. Other things included 

 bottle-shaped sticks, with the thick end roughly fashioned 

 into the shape of a leopard's pad, with which to give the 

 finishing touch to their ghoulish deeds. 



Even if the expedition had not quite the desired result, 

 some interesting facts came to Hght about the Human 

 Leopards. For instance it was found out that the novitiate 

 of an Anioto consisted in his having to live in the forest 

 alone for eight weeks on food he has to kill or find for himself 

 as best he can, but firstly, before he can enter on this stage 

 of the initiation, it has to be known that he has killed a man 

 of his own tribe. Having accomplished these two feats, 

 he is tattooed on the chest above the Mambela cicatrisations. 

 A notable Anioto ishumu or " high priest," who was captured 

 and hanged, had three such cicatrisations on each side of the 

 chest as a mark of his order, and as the identity of these 

 Anioto is unknown save by these cicatrices, everyone is on 

 the look-out for them when passing natives in the forest. 

 Three men have been hanged for being in possession of the 

 Anioto knives. 



It may be taken as said that we were glad to leave these 

 wild and godless tribesmen behind as we pushed on towards 

 Stanleyville. Ever since leaving Irumu the geographical 

 features of the country through which we passed had been 

 mostly hidden by the impenetrable forest, but three days 

 after leaving the poste of Bafwaboli on the Tshopo River, 

 the traveller overlooks the steaming lowlands of the central 

 Congo basin, and may imagine to himself the vast inland lake 

 that once stood there in early Mesozoic days, when the gigan- 

 tosaurus and his brethren ruled over its wide expanse, which 



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