CHAPTEE XXX 



OUR JOURNEY UP THE WELLE 



We were not sorry to leave Angu. The long stays in the hot 

 steaming forest hunting the okapi had been most trying to 

 the health of the party, and the work on the Welle, which 

 has an evil reputation for being the breeding-ground of 

 bilious and blackwater fever, told severely on our weakened 

 constitutions, and we had all suffered from serious attacks of 

 fever. 



Before leaving we obtained another lot of men for the 

 canoe, which took a good many of our things and so light- 

 ened the boats for going up this difficult river ; at each 

 post we came to a fresh number of polers was always 

 engaged. 



We were now in the country of the Bakango, a tribe who 

 inhabit the river banks. They are good watermen and 

 handle their canoes in the rapids with great skill, although 

 in physique they are not nearly so fine as the Yakomas. 

 They intermarry a good deal with the people of the interior. 

 Both the men and women paint striped patterns all over 

 their bodies with the black juice of the forest nut ; they also 

 wear the loin-cloth of bark. The women, who are coarse and 

 ugly, disfigure their ears like the Yakomas, but to a much 

 greater extent ; the whole of the shell is cut out and the 

 remaining rim of flesh stretched like a rubber tyre on a tin 



