76 
V, JANUARY TO JUNE, 1914 
obliged to confess. So long as he can lie with the 
slightest plausibility, he inveighs against his condemna- 
tion with most honourable-seeming indignation, even 
if he is actually guilty. This is a feature in primitive 
man which every one who has to do with him must 
take into account. 
That N’Kendju ought to pay some compensation 
to the family of his companion on the unfortunate 
fishing expedition is obvious, even though he was only 
so very indirectly responsible for the other’s death. 
But they must get the case against him settled in 
orderly fashion in the District Court at Lambarene. 
* 
I am always able to rely on Joseph. True, he 
can neither read nor write, but in spite of that he 
never makes a mistake when he has to get a medicine 
down from the shelf. He remembers the look of the 
words on the label, and reads this, without knowing 
the individual letters. His memory is magnificent, and 
his capacity for languages remarkable. He knows well 
eight negro dialects, and speaks fairly well both French 
and English. He is at present a single man, as his 
wife left him, when he was a cook down on the coast, 
to go and live with a white man. The purchase price 
of a new life companion would be about 600 francs 
{■£ 2 ^), but the money can be paid in instalments. 
Joseph, however, has no mind to take another wife 
under these conditions, for he thinks they are an 
abomination. “ If one of us,” he said to me, “ has not 
completely paid for his wife, his life is most uncomfort- 
able. His wife does not obey him, and whenever an 
opportunity offers she taunts him with having no right 
