CURIOUS CUSTOMS OF CENTRAL AFRICAN TRIBES 



36' 



mosquito displays in its warfare against 

 the human race an energy worthy of a 

 better cause. 



I used to begin breakfast at 5 in the 

 morning, with the aid of two boys to 

 fight the mosquitoes, while I breakfasted 

 amid the fires of dried baobab fruit, 

 which produces a strong and disagreeable 

 smoke. But even these defenses were 

 frequently ineffectual. I went to work, 

 still protected by my two boys, who fran- 

 tically waved branches on all sides of me. 

 but without producing much effect. In 

 the afternoon there was a change, but 

 only in the boys. The first two retired 

 exhausted, and their successors applied 

 themselves with vigor to the work of 

 keeping mosquitoes at bay. When eve- 

 ning came, dense clouds of my tormentors 

 obliged me to retire finally under my 

 mosquito net. 



Apart from these little pests, there is 

 an abundance of snakes in the Kinchasa 

 region, which makes the keeping of do- 

 mestic animals impossible. I have seen 

 whole pigs swallowed by these reptiles. 



ASSEMBLING A RETINUE FOR AN AFRICAN 

 TRIP 



When following the trail in Africa, it 

 is quite impossible to venture into new 

 country if one cannot rely upon one's 

 own people. Consequently, though I am 

 highly conservative, I am likely to keep 

 my two servants for the whole time. I 

 at once reject all who do not give com- 

 plete satisfaction in the early days of 

 their service. Accordingly, I sometimes 

 find it necessary to engage and dismiss 

 fully twenty boys in the first two months 

 before I finally get one who is to my 

 liking. On one of my journeys in the 

 Congo I secured my boy under the fol- 

 lowing circumstances : 



A European informed me that he was 

 parting with his cook because the latter 

 was vain and fond of dress, and never 

 ready with the meals at the right time be- 

 cause he was always engaged in beautify- 

 ing his person. Now a negro who adorns 

 himself to perform his culinary duties is 

 a real treasure. 



If in a European settlement you see a 

 man who is exceptionally dirty and dis- 

 gusting in appearance, you may be sure 

 he is a cook. The blacks insist on their 



wives making use of spoons and other 

 appliances when they prepare food for 

 their lords and masters ; but precautions 

 are deemed useless when it is only a 

 European who is to consume the product. 

 I have seen an exceedingly dirty individ- 

 ual preparing meat-balls for his master 

 by taking the mince into his hands and 

 rolling it on his chest until it was shaped 

 to his liking. I may add that his master 

 was not present. 



But the aboriginal beau, whose name 

 was Bokale, served me faithfully and 

 gave much satisfaction till he was called 

 to a higher sphere of duty as chief of a 

 village. Upon learning of his weakness 

 for self-adornment, I interviewed him at 

 an early opportunity, giving him some 

 good advice and practical illustrations, 

 and assured him that for the first month 

 he might serve up my food half cooked, 

 burn it or otherwise render it uneatable, 

 but that if after the expiration of his 

 period of probation he did not serve me 

 tip-top meals I would visit his iniquities 

 with grievous unnamed penalties. 



In the course of my adventurous years 

 in Central Africa I came to entertain a 

 genuine respect and, in some cases, affec- 

 tion for many of the black people of this 

 little-known land whose inhabitants are 

 so generally misjudged. The European 

 or American who goes to Africa for the 

 first time is prejudiced by the tales of 

 white men on board ship or on the coast. 

 He judges whole tribes by his observa- 

 tions of the negroes on the coast— those 

 who have all the vices of both the black 

 and white races and the virtues of 

 neither. 



BIDDING FAREWELL TO THE PEOPLE OF 

 CONGO LAND 



If one wishes to know the negro as he 

 is, let him abstain from forming any 

 opinion until he leaves the littoral and 

 meets the native of the interior, uncor- 

 rupted by alcohol, European morals, and 

 the love of gain either by fair means or 

 fraud. 



I have twice crossed the Congo Free 

 State and have never come across a tribe 

 which was not naturally good-tempered 

 and, in most instances, hospitable and 

 trustful. 



On the day that I took my final leave 



