NEWSPAPERS. WAR NEWS 151 
general way. What the frame of mind must be of those 
who have to go through the excitement of reading war 
news every day we can hardly imagine. Certainly we 
do not envy them ! 
About this time it became known that of the whites 
who had gone home to fulfil their military duties ten 
had already been killed, and it made a great impression 
on the natives. “ Ten men killed already in this war ! ’ ’ 
said an old Pahouin. “ Why, then, don’t the tribes 
meet for a palaver ? How can they pay for all these 
dead men ? ” For, with the natives, it is a rule that all 
who fall in a war, whether on the victorious or on the 
defeated side, must be paid for by the other side. 
Directly the post has come in, Aloys, my cook, stops 
me to ask : “ Doctor, is it still war ? ” “Yes, Aloys, 
still war.” Then he shakes his head sadly and says to 
himself several times : “ Oh, lala ! Oh, lala ! ” He is 
one of the negroes whose soul is really saddened by the 
thought of the war. 
Now we have to be very economical with our Euro- 
pean foodstuffs, and potatoes have become a delicacy. 
A short time ago a white neighbour sent me by his 
boy a present of several dozen, from which I inferred 
that he was not well and would soon be needing 
my services, and so it turned out ! Since the war we 
have trained ourselves to eat monkey flesh. One of the 
missionaries on the station keeps a black huntsman, 
and sends us regularly some of his booty ; it is monkeys 
that he shoots most frequently, since they are the game 
he finds easiest to bring down. Their flesh tastes some- 
thing like goat’s flesh, but has a kind of sweetish taste 
that the latter has not. People may think what they 
like about Darwinism and the descent of man, but the 
