ee ee e————eEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeEeE~EiE——eeE___ 
. 
VIVI. TO ISANGILA. 71 
of these flowers becomes almost overpowering, but there is 
nothing sickly nor narcotic in their perfume. 
The next day I stopped to lunch in a large village, 
Sadika Banza, the last collection of habitations we should 
meet with on our route. It was a largish native town, 
divided into several great squares by hedges of euphorbia. 
The chief, although said to be somewhat cruel to his 
subjects—he is indeed suspected of keeping up human 
sacrifices—is immensely polite to Europeans, much re- 
sembling in this certain Eastern potentates who receive 
distinguished strangers with such hospitality that they 
feel obliged to overlook the sufferings of the potentates’ 
own people. 
The chief of Sadika Banza sent me eggs, bananas, and a 
fowl on my arrival. The fowl, a somewhat aged male, 
was not immediately needed, so he was tied by the leg to 
a tent-peg. While in this fettered condition, all the other 
village cocks took a mean advantage of him and advanced 
to battle. There would have been little left of my gift 
horse—certainly he was half-plucked—had I not inter- 
vened and carried him into my tent. Between this bird 
and myself a strange attachment arose. At first I deferred 
eating him because he was so tough and thin; then 
eradually he became a privileged pet, allowed to roost 
every night in my tent. During the daytime, when we 
were marching, he was tied up with the cooking-pots and 
carried on a Zanzibari’s head, and directly the caravan 
stopped to rest, this Gallas Africanus was released, and 
trotted round the encampment, finding all sorts of inex- 
pressibly delicious things in the thick grass, to which he 
lustily called the attention of a harem of phantom hens. 
In every village where we paused to rest he gave battle 
stoutly to the local chanticleers, and so identified himself 
with the honour of the expedition that when he was 
killed and half-eaten one evening by a tiger-cat, we felt 
we had lost a doughty champion. Sadika Banza is like 
nearly every Congo village, placed on a high hill, and the 
path which leads up to it is arched over and hidden by 
the immensely thick grass which grows ten and twelve 
