196 A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
source of contention between us. When I first visited the 
chief of Msuata, I took advantage of the impression 
produced by my “present” to extract from him an un- 
willing promise to sit to me as a model. [I arrived on the 
succeeding day with all my implements of magic, and 
poor, fat, trembling Gobila had to sit in immobility before 
me ona square of matting. The constant lifting of my 
eye from the paper and the way I scanned his features 
so disconcerted him, that after the first few minutes of 
the sitting he became quite miserable and implored a 
momentary release. Then he got two of his wives to sit 
on either side of him and mitigate by absorption the effect 
of my evil eye. Thus flanked he sat out bravely a whole 
half-hour but ever averted his head from my gaze, in such 
fashion that after many futile attempts to reproduce his 
features, I gave up the attempt in despair. Gobila was — 
radiant at my defeat. His fetish was stronger than the 
white man’s. Nevertheless he shirked any other contest 
of our psychic forces, and I never persuaded him to give 
me another chance. However, on this occasion we avoid 
any such disagreeable subject. The note-book is kept in 
hiding, and we attempt to draw Gobila out in a most 
innocent manner. Lest my queries should arouse his 
suspicions, Janssen is primed with the necessary questions 
to be put. Gobila is asking about guns—a good idea— 
Janssen carelessly inquires how long is it since the 
Ba-teke have known this weapon. The chief replies, after 
stopping a moment to think, that his father fought with 
bows and arrows and spears, and knew not guns, which 
were only introduced towards the close of his life, when 
Gobila was a little boy.* 
“Can he ever remember to have heard speak of the 
time when there were no pine-apples, oranges, maize, 
manioc or sugar-cane?”” “No; were not those things 
* Gobila is not the real name of the present chief of Msuata. It is 
the name of an elder brother who was formerly chief, but who suffered 
from. occasional fits of madness, or melancholia, in which he cut off too 
many of his lieges’ heads. Consequently he was quitted by almost the 
entirety of his people and slaves, who crossed the Congo under the 
leadership of Gampama (the present Gobila) and established themselves 
