73 
NEG^O IDEAS OF LAW AND RIGHT 
During our absence Joseph had carried out his duties 
very well, and had treated the surgical cases with 
intelligence. On his own initiative he had dressed the 
festering stump of a man’s arm with a solution of 
hydrogen peroxide, which he had to make from biborate 
of sodium ! 
The young man who had been mauled by the hippo 
I found in a very bad state. My three weeks’ absence 
had prevented me from operating at the right time, 
and he died during the amputation of his leg, which I 
now hastily undertook. As he drew his last breaths 
his brother began to look angrily at the companion 
who had gone with him on the fatal expedition, and had 
come to the station to help to look after him. He 
spoke to him also in a low voice, and as the body 
became cold there began an excited duel of words 
between them. Joseph drew me aside and explained 
what it meant. N’Kendju, the companion, had been 
with the dead man on the expedition, and they had, 
in fact, gone on his invitation. He was, therefore, 
according to native law, responsible for him, and 
could be called to account. That was why he had had 
to leave his village to stay all these weeks by his 
friend’s bedside, and now that they were taking the 
dead man back to his village he was expected to go 
with them, that the case against him might be settled 
at once. He did not want to go, however, as he knew 
that it would mean death. I told the brother that I 
regarded N’Kendju as being now in my service, and 
that I would not let him go, which led to an angry 
altercation between him and myself while the body 
was being placed in the canoe, where the mother and 
the aunts began the funeral lamentations. He asserted 
