Village Life in Pongo-land. 151 
received only twice his fare ; briefly, next morning 
she was too surly to bid us adieu. 
When giving Forteune his “ dash,” I was 
curious to hear how he could explain the report 
about the dead gorilla shot the night before last: 
the truth of the old saying, “ a black man is never 
fast for an excuse,” was at once illustrated; the 
beast had been badly wounded, but it had dragged 
itself off to die. And where was the blood ? 
The rain had washed the blood away! 
Nimrod seemed chagrined at the poor end of 
so much trouble, but there was something in his 
look and voice suggesting a suppressed thought— 
these people, like the English and the Somal, show 
their innermost secrets in their faces. At last, I 
asked him if he was now willing to try the She- 
kyani country. He answered flatly, “No!” And 
why ? 
Some bushmen had bewitched him; he knew 
the fellow, and would quickly make “ bob come 
up his side already two whites had visited him 
with a view of shooting gorillas; both had failed; 
it was “ shame palaver! ” 
This might have been true, but it certainly was 
not the whole truth. I can hardly accept M. du 
Chaillu’s explanation, that the Mpongwe, who 
attack the beasts with trade muskets and peb¬ 
bles, will not venture into the anthropoid’s haunts 
unless certain of their white employer’s staunch- 
