CHAPTER IV

WITH THE BANKUTU CANNIBALS

Although we had been able to obtain porters for our journey with the help of the head of the secret society, the march to the Sankuru was not without its difficulties. It was full of the little annoyances inseparable from travel in out-of-the-way places. To begin with, the day was intensely hot, and the hours of marching through the plains proved rather trying; in addition to fatigue we were soon inconvenienced by thirst, for the porter who was carrying our reserve of water had placed it in a large bottle which contained some dirty oil, thereby rendering it quite undrinkable, a fact which we did not discover in time to husband the small supply we were able to carry in our own water-bottles. Then on arriving at the village of Zappo-Lubumba, where we camped for the night, there arose a good deal of disputing between our Bushongo porters and the Basongo-Meno of the village, for the latter flatly declined to sell our men any food or to show them where clear drinking water could be obtained. This led to our having rather a stormy interview with Zappo. We told him that we knew perfectly well there was plenty of food in the place, and that we were ready to pay a good price for it; he replied that he had told his people to trade with ours, but they had refused to do so, and he suggested that we should take the food by force. This, of course, we could not do, for we should at once have ruined our reputation as peaceful travellers and should very likely have got the worst of a “brush-up” with the warlike Basongo-Meno, so we had to be content with Zappo’s promise that he would do his best to arrange matters. Meantime we told our Bushongo to be careful to avoid any breach of the peace. Shortly after we had turned in, Jones aroused us with the pleasing intelligence that every one of our porters had bolted, leaving us without a single man to convey our loads the remaining few miles to the river, entirely-dependent upon the goodwill of the Basongo-Meno, whose attitude towards us was anything but friendly. Nothing was to be gained by making a fuss in the middle of the night, so we slept on till morning, and then once more had a stormy interview with Zappo. We put the matter straight to him. His people had treated our porters so badly that they had been obliged to run away, and therefore the people of Zappo-Lubumba had practically prevented our passage through their country; this amounted to an act of hostility which would arouse the ire of the Government; the garrison of Bena Dibele was not far off, and the soldiers there could easily come to our assistance; we did not want to get any one into trouble, but we must proceed at once to the river; what was Zappo prepared to do? Now Zappo himself had never been in the least unfriendly to us, and I am sure he genuinely regretted the turn affairs had taken, for he at once promised to do his best, and then explained to us the difficulty of his own position. As at Misumba so at Lubumba, the real chief and the chief recognised by the Government were two different individuals. Zappo was merely an elder who, like Pongo-Pongo, posed as chief before any white man who might pass through the village, and possessed no authority over the people whatsoever. He told us that his position was an impossible one, and begged of us to set matters right if we met any Government official, for he was sick of always risking trouble to himself which might at any moment be brought about by an act of violence on the part of people over whom he had no control. We told him that he had our fullest sympathy, but that the matter that really concerned us was how our loads were to get to the river; when they had been safely carried there we might think more about Zappo’s troubles than we had time to do at the moment. Zappo then left us, and after a good deal of talking he induced the people of the village to carry our baggage on to Gandu, or rather to a point on the river a little above the fuel-station, whence it was conveyed to its destination in canoes. With the exception of two straps nothing whatever was stolen, so we considered that we had come well out of a situation which might have ended in unpleasantness. The village of Zappo-Lubumba is too easily reached from the Government post of Bena Dibele for us to have anticipated any actual attack upon our persons, but the attitude of the Basongo-Meno clearly showed that only the proximity of troops prevented them from plundering us and incidentally cutting our throats. We knew that we might have to wait several days at Gandu for the arrival of the Kasai Company’s steamer, which was to carry Hardy down-stream to Dima on his way to the coast, so we settled down to make ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit. The first thing we did was to rig up a large “dining-room” of mosquito netting, for our previous visit to the fuel-station had shown us that some such protection was absolutely necessary. I have never stayed in a place where mosquitoes are so numerous or so aggressive as at Gandu. To sit out of doors after sundown would have been quite impossible. Our tents were pitched close up to the edge of the river bank, which in the rainy season is about twelve feet high above the water’s edge, and in the mornings the inside of the ends of the tents which faced the water were simply covered with swarms of mosquitoes, to avoid disturbing which it was necessary to dress with caution. We used literally to run from the shelter of our big net to our tents when we went to bed, and then used to turn in without lighting a candle for fear that a light might attract still more of the fever-spreading insects, which must breed in countless millions in the forest swamps which lie close to the fuel-station. So bad are the mosquitoes at Gandu that natives staying for a night there who are unprovided with cotton shelters under which to sleep, often prefer to find some comparatively dry spot in the forest and lie down out of doors at the risk of being killed by leopards to being eaten alive by the mosquitoes in the wood-cutters’ huts by the river. Gandu, therefore, is by no means pleasant by night, and by day it is scarcely more desirable, for the tsetse-fly, the bearer of the deadly sleeping sickness, is very prevalent, and one can hardly avoid being frequently bitten by it if one does not take advantage of the protection of mosquito nets. Our net was a large rectangular one, under which several people could dine, so we spent most of our time beneath it, but the heat at Gandu is usually very great, and at midday in our mosquito-proof shelter it was well-nigh unbearable. Our stay at the fuel-station was not a particularly pleasant one; but although we had no work to prevent us from brooding over our discomforts, our time was fully occupied in providing fresh meat for the table, the people of Zappo-Lubumba having declined to sell us any poultry. We depended entirely upon our guns for our food. The fuel-station lies in a little clearing about sixty yards square on the left or south bank of the river, and is surrounded by very dense forest, in which, as I have said, are a number of swamps. The river is here about half a mile wide, and in mid-stream there lies an island, half of which is covered with impenetrable forest for the most part under water, while the other half consists of a sandbank. Immediately upon our arrival we inquired of the wood-choppers if any wild-duck frequented this island, and we were rather unpleasantly surprised to learn that they were only to be found there at rare intervals although a few could daily be seen flying up and down the river. We therefore decided to place a wooden decoy-duck which we had brought with us at the end of the sandbank in the hope of attracting the birds to the island. We found only one canoe at Gandu, and that was a small one which leaked badly, while the only wood-chopper who showed any desire to help us in our shooting was quite the worst paddler and least intelligent native I have ever had the misfortune to meet. He contrived to make the canoe roll about to an incredible extent whenever one wanted to attempt a long shot with a rifle at a crane or some similar wader, and used to give us advice at the top of his voice just as we were endeavouring to approach within shot of a particularly wary bird. We found our decoy-duck a very useful asset. With its aid we managed to attract quite a number of wild-duck to the island, and we soon came to the conclusion that the fact that one’s food supply depends upon one’s shooting considerably increases one’s percentage of kills. But we were not able to secure duck every day. Often we had to be content with cranes. The meat from the breasts of these birds is really not bad, and “crane steaks” became quite a favourite dish with us. Neither Torday nor I are great anglers, but Luchima, our Batetela cook, used occasionally to catch some fish, though he complained bitterly of my tackle, saying that he would much prefer a primitive native hook to those which had been supplied by a well-known London shop. His method of fishing was to tie his line to a stout stick and attempt to jerk the fish on to the bank directly he felt a “bite”; another way of catching the larger varieties of fish is to fix the end of the line (a stout one) to a strong but pliable sapling growing at the water’s edge; the hook is then thrown out into the stream baited with the entrails of a bird. When the fish takes the hook the bendable tree gives sufficiently to his pull to prevent the line being broken by the jerk, and in this way one man can look after several lines.

[Illustration: A BASONGO-MENO WARRIOR.]

[Illustration: OUR CAMP AT GANDU.]

There is no lack of animal and bird life at Gandu. Elephants are said to visit the Sankuru at this point during the dry season, when the swamps inland are practically dried up, and hippopotami are to be found at no great distance from the wood post. Curiously enough we did not see a single crocodile in the neighbourhood, although the word “Gandu” means crocodile in the Chituba trade-language. Pigs are very frequently to be heard by night splashing through the swamps close to the fuel-stations, but owing to the density of the forest it is almost impossible to approach these animals; leopards exist in the forest, but are not very numerous. Upon the island opposite to our camp we saw a number of tracks of the sitatunga antelope, but we never succeeded in getting a shot at this somewhat rare beast. The natives assured us that the animals were in the habit of swimming over from the right bank of the river to the island, where it is possible that they may have found a certain herb with a salt taste, in search of which I have known buffaloes to swim the Sankuru. Monkeys of several varieties are, of course, very plentiful in the woods, and we used to shoot specimens of them, both for the sake of collecting their skins and in order to supply our boys with their meat, of which most natives are very fond; but Gandu is richer in birds than in beasts. Most of the varieties of aquatic birds that frequent the Sankuru are to be seen in a day at Gandu. Cranes, storks, herons, marabouts, egrets, spur-winged plovers, duck, moor-fowl, ibis, and brilliantly coloured kingfishers are only a few of the many species that are to be found on the island or along the river banks, while the woods are swarming with countless feathered inhabitants. We therefore spent our time, when not actually shooting for the pot, in preparing the skins of birds to be sent home. After a few days’ stay at Gandu our old friend the _Velde_ appeared on her way down-stream, and Hardy left us to begin his journey home. He had seen a good deal of native life, and took with him a great number of sketches and notes of people and scenery to be worked up into finished pictures in Europe. He much regretted, I think, that circumstances would not permit him to stay on and undertake with us a journey in the equatorial forest; but he had not been in particularly good health, and, on the whole, perhaps it is a good thing for him that he was unable to remain and have to endure the effects of bad climate and shortage of food which we were to go through before the end of the year. Several days elapsed before a steamer going up-river arrived to take Torday and me to Bena Dibele. During these days we managed to induce one or two Basongo-Meno fishermen to visit our camp, and even to take us out shooting in their canoes. Zappo himself came several times to see us, and upon one occasion took us out to shoot a hippopotamus. His paddling was of a very different kind to that of the Baluba wood-chopper who usually acted as our ferryman. Zappo was absolutely at home in his canoe. The craft was a small one, and when Torday and I both accompanied Zappo her gunwale was very little above the water; but with such a paddler we had no fear of a ducking. In common with all the natives of the Sankuru, Zappo propelled his canoe in a standing position, keeping her level with the pressure of his feet. As he approached the hippo he kept his boat absolutely steady, sending her forward swiftly yet so smoothly that one could scarcely distinguish the strokes of the paddle that moved her. In addition to this Zappo was as cool as one could possibly wish, and one was never worried with the thought that he would spoil one’s chances by talking or moving just as one was about to take a shot. I have never been out shooting with a better paddler than Zappo. Fortunately we were able to reward him, for we killed a hippo about two miles above our camp; but as we shot the animal in the evening we were unable to find it when it rose to the surface of the water, and the steamer arriving next morning to take us up the river, we saw no more of the beast, which, we subsequently learned, was found later in the day by the Basongo-Meno.

The voyage to Bena Dibele passed off without any incident, and we reached the Government post on the right bank of the Sankuru in the afternoon of the third day after our start from Gandu. The place is built in a clearing in the forest on the bank of the river, and is a typical example of a Congolese military station. It was under the command of a _sous-officier_ of a Belgian cavalry regiment, who had already served for several years in the Congo, assisted by a young civilian. The _chef de poste_ had about forty native soldiers and a similar number of workmen, who cut up and packed the rubber brought in by the local natives in payment of taxes; he was in charge of a large district along the shores of the Sankuru, which extended some distance to the north and south of the river. The civilian’s duties consisted largely in managing the transport of stores and rubber to and from the five other Government posts which lie to the north in the great forest, in the _domaine privée_ of the King of the Belgians.

The buildings at Bena Dibele consisted of the bungalows of the _chef de poste_ and his assistant, two spare bungalows for officials staying at the post on their way to stations in the forest, two large rubber-drying houses, a storehouse for trade goods, a guard-room, and villages for the soldiers and the workmen. The place was, like nearly all Congolese stations, very neatly kept, and lying on the shores of a fine open reach of the Sankuru it is quite picturesque. Its importance arises from the fact that it is the base whence supplies are sent into the southern part of the _domaine privée_. The Lukenye River flows parallel with the Sankuru about five days’ march to the north, and upon this river are situated the Government posts of Kole, Lodja, and Katako Kombe; still further to the north are two more posts, Loto and Lomela. A small steamer plies upon the Lukenye and takes some of the rubber from Kole and Lodja down to Lac Leopold II.; but all stores are landed at Dibele and sent up to these places from there, as the steamer service upon the Sankuru is far safer and more regular than that on the swift and narrow Lukenye. About three miles above Bena Dibele, also on the right bank of the river, are situated very extensive rubber plantations belonging to the Government, and under the control of a white official with an expert knowledge of rubber planting. For every ton of wild rubber exported from the _domaine_ a certain number of rubber vines are planted at Dibele, the object being to compensate for the amount taken out of the country. The plantations are in the forest, in which long lines of plants are laid out, the place being cleaned of undergrowth for the purpose. The number of vines already planted must be enormous, but about twenty years must elapse, we were told, before any extensive output of rubber can be expected from them. We were very courteously received by Monsieur Lardot, the _chef de poste_ at the time of our visit, and although we had been unable to inform him of our arrival in advance, he was quite prepared to welcome us and to give us any help that lay in his power. We therefore soon began to question him about the forest, and to form plans for our projected journey. We desired to see something of the Basongo-Meno who inhabit the right bank of the Sankuru, and also of the Bankutu, a cannibal people of whose ferocity we had heard a great deal, and who resided in the heart of the forest to the north-west of Dibele; in addition to this, we wanted to study the primitive Batetela tribes of the country to the north of the Lubefu River, and thus connect our work with that already done in the neighbourhood of Mokunji. Monsieur Lardot informed us that we could make the acquaintance of a Basongo-Meno chief quite close to Dibele, in fact we could ask him to come and see us in the station, but that we should have to proceed to the neighbourhood of Kole in order to find the Bankutu. The road from Bena Dibele to Kole lay through the country of these cannibals, and although they were quiet at the time, Monsieur Lardot advised us to be very cautious in our dealings with them, for they were treacherous in the extreme. He had heard that around Kole they were worse than to the south of the Lukenye, but of that part of the country he had no personal knowledge. During our stay at Bena Dibele we met a young Norwegian artillery officer who had entered the service of the Congo State, and who was proceeding from Lomela, where he had been _chef de poste_, to take up an appointment at Lusambo. This gentleman was able to give us a good deal of information as to the whereabouts of the Batetela tribes, and he advised us to go on from Kole to Lodja and there make a tour to the northward in the direction of Lomela. He told us that we should find near the latter place a tribe known as the Akela, of whose very existence nothing appears to have been previously heard among scientists in Europe, so we were naturally anxious to follow out the suggestion of a trip into their country.

Meantime we had to stay for a week or two at Bena Dibele to await the arrival of some things we were expecting to reach us from Europe, and which included a fresh supply of photographic materials without which we could not well proceed. Torday occupied his time with the Basongo-Meno chief mentioned to us by the _chef de poste_, but found him a rather unsatisfactory person, who was usually in a state of intoxication produced by drinking fermented palm wine. At this time I suffered a great deal from fever. The climate of the equatorial forest, of which we were now upon the southern edge, is extremely unhealthy, malaria being very prevalent. I experienced a very bad attack at Dibele, and I think that Torday and the _chef de poste_ really believed that they would have to arrange a funeral, but I managed to shake off the fever, although during the whole of our wanderings in the forest I was constantly worried by returns of it. The civilian in charge of the transport at Bena Dibele was also very ill during our visit, and we heard that one of the two white men at Kole was at death’s door with black-water fever, but this turned out to be an exaggeration. Owing to my illness I was unable to get about much in the neighbourhood, while Torday was engaged upon his study of the Basongo-Meno, and upon the compilation of some vocabularies of various tribes which he obtained from the soldiers, most of whom belonged to distant parts of the Congo territory, for the Government usually employs its soldiers at some distance from their homes, so that a man may not be called upon to serve against his own people, in which case he would most probably desert. Although duiker and other small antelope and pigs are common in the forest, I was too weak to undertake any shooting excursions, and had to content myself with collecting one or two monkeys, which I obtained without going outside the station. Life therefore at Bena Dibele was not very interesting, and quite devoid of any incident worth recording. We were able before starting upon our wanderings in the forest to see matters adjusted with regard to the chieftainship of Misumba and Zappo-Lubumba. We told the _chef de poste_ that at present he never dealt directly with the real chief at either of these villages, and he agreed with us that the arrangement of transacting Government business with only a simple elder or councillor was unsatisfactory to all concerned; he therefore summoned the real chiefs and the pseudo-chiefs of both villages to a meeting at Bena Dibele. They came, accompanied by a few retainers. The _chef de poste_ addressed them, pointing out the absurdity of the existing situation, and suggesting that now the real chiefs should assume their proper responsibility to the Government for the conduct of their people, and should take over the emblem of recognised authority—namely, the metal disc worn on a chain around the neck. No one had the slightest objection to raise to this proposal; in fact, the delight of Pongo-Pongo and Zappo at thus getting out of a position which could scarcely fail sooner or later to become impossible, was very genuine. After the medallions had been handed over to their rightful owners, the _chef de poste_ began to give a warning to the people of Zappo-Lubumba to be very careful in their treatment of the porters of white men who passed through their village; inadvertently he commenced to address his remarks to Zappo, but the latter stopped him at once. “Do not caution me,” he said; “there is your recognised chief; deal with him. I am well out of all these discussions now; I am a nobody.” The only person who did not seem pleased at the arrangement was the real chief of Lubumba, who doubtless had enjoyed the opportunity of making himself disagreeable with no fear of the consequences; Isambula N’Genga appeared rather gratified than otherwise at receiving the medallion, which he probably thought would enhance his dignity a little, but, as usual, he was too bored to take a very lively interest in the proceedings.

Despite the hospitable welcome we had received at Bena Dibele, we were by no means sorry when the arrival of our goods by steamer set us free to commence our journey into the forest and put an end to the period of inactivity which we had spent in the Government station. We engaged only about fifty porters to carry our loads to Kole, and as these loads consisted to a great extent of trade goods wherewith to purchase specimens _en route_, we had to reduce our personal baggage to the smallest amount possible. We left the remainder of our belongings at Bena Dibele. Knowing that we were about to enter a country where extreme caution would be necessary in order to avoid hostility on the part of the natives, we considered it wise to take as small a caravan as possible, in order that we might be able the more easily to keep our eyes on our porters and prevent them causing any trouble in the Bankutu villages. As usual, too, we determined not to be accompanied by any armed followers, whose presence might easily be taken as a declaration of war by the suspicious people of the forest; our ten Albini rifles therefore remained at Bena Dibele, still packed as they had been sent from Europe, and we took with us no arms other than our shot guns and sporting rifles. We were determined to endeavour always to spend the nights in the Bankutu villages, however inhospitably we might be received, for we hoped in this way to be able to gather a little information about the people, which we could not hope to obtain by simply passing through their villages and camping in the forest, although the latter course might possibly be rather the safer one. We despatched our carriers overland to Pakoba, a Basongo-Meno village near the Sankuru, about ten miles to the west of Bena Dibele, while we ourselves proceeded down the river in a large dug-out, disembarking on the right bank to walk on to Pakoba, which lies a mile from the water. The bank, although the dry season had really commenced, for the month of May was now well advanced, was extremely swampy, but we were met by the chief of Pakoba, who showed us the least muddy way to the village, and we arrived shortly before sundown, before several of our loads had come from Dibele. The Basongo-Meno of Pakoba were about as enthusiastic in their welcome to us as their kinsmen of Zappo-Lubumba had been. They made excuses to avoid either giving or selling us any chickens, and took very little interest in our arrival. The lack of fresh food, however, did not inconvenience us, for we had brought a crate full of live fowls from Dibele, and our men were all supplied with a store of provisions, so the surliness of the Basongo-Meno only resulted in loss of trade to the village, and the night passed without any unpleasantness or discomfort.

Next day we marched for six hours to the Bankutu village of Twipolo. The way lay in a northerly direction through forest, with scarcely a clearing to break the monotony of walking hour after hour in the gloom of the woods, unable to see ten yards on either hand. The ground was rather uneven, the road (or rather narrow track) crossing as many as ten little streams, each being at the bottom of a steep-sided ravine, the climbing in and out of which was rather trying in the oppressive heat of the forest, particularly for any one who, like myself, had only partially recovered from the effects of a very sharp go of fever. On the way we passed a deserted camp built by Batetela rubber collectors. These people evidently believe in making themselves at home when out in the forest in search of rubber. The huts constituting this camp (and several other similar camps we subsequently passed through) were, of course, only of a temporary nature, but they must have been quite as weatherproof, before they had been allowed to fall in, as the houses occupied by the Batetela in their villages. Each hut had a bed-frame raised several inches from the ground, upon which mats had been placed to sleep on; and we saw outside the houses, placed in circles around the spots where fires had evidently been, stakes driven into the ground and lashed together in an ingenious imitation of European deck chairs, the seats being made of roughly plaited vines. But the most remarkable thing about the camp was a scaffold or tower, about ten or twelve feet in height, situated in the centre of the group of huts. We soon learned the reason for the existence of this tower, the like of which we had not previously seen. The Batetela who used the camps had left their own country, and in their search for the rubber vine had entered the territory of the Bankutu.

Between the Batetela and the Bankutu a sort of desultory border warfare is continually taking place, accordingly the Bankutu would be only too glad of an opportunity to plunder a Batetela camp, killing any defenceless people they might find therein, and carrying off their bodies to be eaten in the village. While the Batetela are absent collecting rubber, a guard is always left in camp, one of whom acts as a sentry on the top of the scaffold, from which elevated position he can look down upon the tangle of undergrowth surrounding the camp and, by detecting the slightest movement of the bushes, apprise his comrades of the stealthy approach of the Bankutu, which would not be noticed by sentries standing on the ground before the enemy had come so near as to be able to use his deadly poisoned arrows from behind the cover of the underwood. Directly the sentry gives the alarm, the signalling drum, already mentioned as being used around Mokunji, is beaten, sending the alarm far away into the forest, and summoning the rubber collectors, who hasten back to defend their camp. As a rule the Bankutu then make off, for, as I shall show later on, their method of warfare inclines them more to sniping and surprising unsuspecting enemies than to risking loss to themselves in a pitched battle. Obviously the look-out on the tower would be of little use in the case of a night attack, but, like many negroes, the Bankutu do not like to move about at night, and, consequently, their raids on the Batetela are far less serious than they might be. At Twipolo we entered the first Bankutu village we had seen. These villages lie in the heart of the forest, so closely surrounded by the woods that the one street, bordered on each side by huts, of which they consist, is rather a mere widening of the track than a clearing in the forest. One comes upon the villages quite suddenly, and unless one has heard the crowing of a cock or the whistling of the emerald cuckoo (a bird which is seldom to be found unless there be a clearing of some sort close at hand), one steps out of the forest into the village before one has realised that there is a human habitation within miles. The villages themselves though small and, usually on the approach of strangers, practically deserted, are neat and very picturesque. The houses are rectangular, and are built of the bark of trees neatly fastened to a framework of stakes and thatched with leaves; next to the pretty decorated houses of the Bushongo of Misumba, the bark huts of the Bankutu are the neatest we saw during our wanderings in the Kasai. But the people themselves are by no means so prepossessing. What a contrast they form to the tall dignified Bushongo of the plains to the south of the Sankuru! Small and very dirty in appearance, superstitious, timid, and treacherous, they appear to have been influenced by the oppressive atmosphere and almost ghostly gloom of their native forest. As some plants require the rays of the sun and the fresh air to develop them, so it appears to be with the negro. The Bushongo of the plains are a fine race of men with a dignity and certain grace of manner which cannot fail to attract the attention of the European who visits them; they have evolved for themselves a high state of civilisation before the white man ever set foot in their country; they have developed to a greater degree than most, if not all, the natives of equatorial Africa such civilised arts as weaving, embroidery, and wood carving. The Bankutu, on the other hand, are under-sized and ugly, sullen and disagreeable in their manner, and, with the exception of the building of huts, the only art that has been developed to any extent among them is the art of killing their fellow-men by stealth.

[Illustration: A BANKUTU CANNIBAL.]

[Illustration: A BANKUTU VILLAGE.]

When a white man first commences a stay among negroes he usually considers them all to be ugly, and finds a great difficulty in distinguishing individuals from one another or in recognising natives whom he has previously met. As time goes on, however, he becomes so used to the negro type of countenance that his ideas as to its ugliness undergo a change, and he soon comes to regard many individuals as quite handsome; for he begins to judge more by a bright and ready smile or an open honest countenance than by a European standard of regularity of feature. I do not think, however, that any one could find much to admire in the appearance of the Bankutu. They have a “shifty” look about them—a manner which displays no inclination to trust or to be trusted. One can readily understand that the people of the plains may regard the inhabitants of the equatorial forest as of supernatural origin, as the Bushongo regard the Batwa dwarfs. These dwarfs, whom I have mentioned in the pages dealing with our stay at Lusambo, must be very similar in character to the Bankutu, but, having long since been subjugated by neighbouring tribes, they are split up, and therefore do not constitute such a menace to the peace of the district as do the people whose country we were now passing through. The Bankutu do not exactly increase their beauty by the scars with which both sexes ornament their faces, the women in particular rendering their countenances more repulsive than nature has made them by rows of raised scars reaching from the temples across the cheeks to the jaw-bone. More debased types of the human family than these women it would be difficult to imagine. The men allow their hair to grow long, and the care they bestow upon twisting it into innumerable little tails hanging back from the forehead, saturated with palm oil, is about all the attention they pay to their toilet, for, unlike most negroes, the Bankutu _never wash_; when crossing a river they incidentally remove a little of the filth from their lower limbs, and, I believe, when their condition has become too awful for words, they will sometimes scrape themselves with a knife; but washing in the streams is an unknown habit with them. At Twipolo we were most ungraciously received. We saw very few people about the village and no one who could possibly have been a man of importance; no act of violence, however, was attempted against our carriers, and no objection was raised to our pitching our tents in the village. Shortly after our arrival we heard some angry discussion taking place at the entrance to the village, and, fearing that our porters might have caused trouble with the Bankutu, we hastened to discover what was the matter. We found that some Batetela porters who had carried loads from Bena Dibele to Kole were complaining that, upon their return journey, the Bankutu had placed poisoned spikes in the track, concealed by leaves, doubtless in order to kill them to serve as food at a cannibal feast. This sort of occurrence is, I believe, by no means rare, although the Bankutu living on the way from Dibele to Kole as a rule allow caravans conveying Government property to pass unmolested. In defence of their action the Bankutu stated that the Batetela had stolen some poultry belonging to the village. We were by no means pleased at the possibility of a breach of the peace, which would almost certainly have led to our being attacked ourselves, so Torday called the Batetela aside and advised them to do nothing in the matter on their own account, but to complain to the _chef de poste_ at Bena Dibele; this they agreed to do, still bitterly complaining at the treacherous and, according to themselves, unprovoked attempt which had been made upon them. Early next morning they departed for Bena Dibele and we commenced a four and a half hours’ march to the village of Gamba. As a rule, when travelling in the Congo one allows one’s porters to take their own time over the journey, provided, of course, that they turn up with their loads in reasonable time at the village where the night is to be spent. This is far more convenient for the men, who can rest for a few minutes when they feel inclined, than for them to march in a body, halting only when the white man, who is not carrying a load, thinks that he would like to sit down by the wayside and enjoy a pipe. The porters often prefer to travel much faster than the white man and then rest for some time, and, very often, bathe in a stream before continuing the journey. By allowing the men to do this one certainly contributes to their comfort, and the loads are almost always brought punctually to their destination. Our men were marching this way through the Bankutu country, for we knew that Government loads were allowed by the Bankutu to pass unmolested, and we considered that our men would be just as safe travelling in this way as if they marched in close attendance upon ourselves.

As we entered Gamba most of our men had already reached the village, and one of them was leisurely walking up the street when I noticed a local native, concealed from the view of our porters by a hut, tentatively drawing at his bowstring, upon which an arrow was placed, and staring so longingly at the back of our carrier that he had not heard our approach. Upon our demanding sharply what he was doing the little man vanished into the forest behind the houses. He _may_ not have intended to shoot; but our carrier was a big fleshy man who might well tempt the arrow of such an insatiable cannibal as the Bankutu. We paid no further attention to the incident, and no active hostility was shown to us at Gamba. Our reception was of the kind to which we soon grew accustomed in the Bankutu country. We found but few people about the village, and were met by an ill-conditioned youth, who appeared to be in charge of the place. We inquired if we could see the chief, whereupon the youth informed us that he was that dignitary. This was so obviously false that we said that we did not believe it. “The chief is dead,” replied the boy. We inquired for the elders; they too were dead. We asked if food would be sold to our porters, but were told that the manioc had all been destroyed by wild pigs and no food existed in the village. Could we buy any chickens? No poultry was kept here (and this despite the fact that we could see many fowls about the place). “Very well,” we said, “we have sufficient for our men and ourselves to eat; will you show us where to obtain drinking water.” “We have no water except when it rains,” was the answer. This reception is typical of the way in which the Bankutu treat visitors to their country. Needless to say, a clear stream was found by our men in a very few minutes (one way of finding water being to follow the village dogs at sundown), and it cannot be imagined that the natives hoped we could believe such a tale about scarcity of water in so damp a place as the forest. We were careful never to display annoyance at the treatment we received, although it is rather trying to one’s temper, never very good in the terrible forest climate, to be greeted with this sort of thing when arriving in a village tired after a march, and later on we managed to induce the youth who posed as chief to come and talk to us. We began through him to try and buy a few things in the village. We selected an arrow and offered a high price for it; the offer was refused. We then steadily raised our offer until it reached quite ridiculous proportions, but all to no purpose; the Bankutu were evidently determined not to trade with us. Nor could we obtain any great amount of information at Gamba, for we had to rely mainly upon our own observation, and therefore could glean nothing of the social organisation, &c., of the tribe. In the course of conversation, however, we learned that all the other Bankutu villages were in the habit of frequently eating human flesh, but were assured that the people of Gamba were far too virtuous to do anything so horrible. Curiously enough we heard a similar tale in other villages, the inhabitants of the place we happened to be in always claiming to be the only Bankutu who were not cannibals! Later on we found out a good deal more about these savages, and were able to realise how difficult it is for the white man to enter into any negotiations with them. I have stated that we never saw any one whom we really believed to be the chief or even an elder of a village. It appears that every man of the Bankutu has two huts, one in the villages such as we have seen, and another some distance off in the forest; he keeps all his valuables at his forest hut, and near to it are his plantations. Upon the approach of strangers the people make off into the woods, and take up their residence in their forest dwellings which are scattered about, not grouped together in hamlets, and therefore are extremely difficult to find. The villages, which contain nothing of value, are left in charge of a few slaves, or of such of the Bankutu as may care to remain and catch a glimpse of the strangers. The Bankutu would lose practically nothing were the intruders to burn their villages to the ground; for the erection of a new settlement would occupy but little time, and, in the meanwhile, the natives could reside in their “country houses” in the depth of the forest. Not long before our visit to this country a Government official had determined by hook or by crook to become acquainted with the dignitaries of a certain Bankutu village. Upon arriving at the place accompanied by an escort of troops, he found not a soul in the village. Having plenty of provisions and any amount of time to spare, he decided to quietly settle down and await the return of the people. Day after day went by and still the Bankutu failed to put in an appearance, and at last the official, called away by other duties, was obliged to leave without so much as setting eyes on a native, although doubtless his own movements and those of his men were closely watched by Bankutu concealed in the forest. The white man probably knew nothing of the existence of other huts in the woods, or he would not have wasted his time. As I have said one sees no plantations when marching along the roads, but this is not only the case in the Bankutu country; in many districts where the natives grow food-stuffs in large quantities the fields are situated in out-of-the-way places so as to escape the notice of the passer-by, whereas in other places, which really produce no more, acre after acre of plantations are to be seen. The best way to gain an idea of the amount of land under cultivation is to get some local native to accompany you in search of guinea fowl, for these birds are always to be found near the fields. The white man who merely passes through a district and stays only in the villages cannot hope to form any accurate opinion of the extent to which the natives cultivate their land. After leaving Gamba we marched through an open space about nine miles long, but quite narrow, the first piece of really open country we had met with since leaving the Sankuru, and arrived at a village where we met with a better reception, although I think it highly improbable that even here, at Chenjo, we came in contact with the real chief. The Bankutu clearly could not make us out. We could not be Government officials, as we were unescorted by troops, and therefore had presumably not come to inquire into any of the acts of violence towards their neighbours, of which, no doubt, every hamlet we passed through had been guilty; traders and missionaries had not, at the time of our visit, entered the country, so the Bankutu could not have mistaken us for either of the two other kinds of white men known in the Congo; we bore a good reputation as peaceful travellers, who appeared to want nothing except to purchase articles which the natives had never previously had a chance to sell, and we were prepared to pay exorbitant prices for them. Altogether the reason of our visit was a mystery to the Bankutu; and very likely the fact that we aroused their curiosity contributed largely to the safety of our passage through their territory. At the village of Asenge, only one hour’s march from the Lukenye River, which we reached after eight hours’ trying walk through the forest, we were also fairly well received, but we arrived too late to observe much of our surroundings. One curious thing, however, we did notice, and that was the presence of a couple of lads, who continually nodded their heads until it seemed as if they must inevitably fall from their bodies. Upon inquiring the reason for this extraordinary proceeding we were told that it was part of a cure for stomach-ache! We subsequently learned, however, that the lads were apprenticed to the local witch-doctor, and the necessity for ceaselessly nodding the head was part of the mystic ceremony connected with their initiation into his magic art.

The next day we hurried on to Kole, on the shore of the Lukenye River. The Government station lies upon the right bank, about forty feet above the water’s edge, and is built in a space cleared of trees, in the midst of the densest forest, which is just large enough to allow room for the houses of the two white officials, the rubber houses, stores, and quarters of the fifty soldiers and the workmen, and a fairly large parade ground. The bungalows are built of the stems of palm leaves, through which sufficient air can pass to relieve the oppressive heat in the day time, but which admit a good deal of damp at night. Upon our arrival we were welcomed by Lieutenant Peffer, the _chef de poste_, and by his assistant, the white N.C.O., who had recently been ill with what he imagined was black-water fever, but which in reality had turned out to be a severe attack of bilious fever. The _chef de poste_ at once remarked that he considered we had run a great risk in passing through the Bankutu villages unattended by an armed force; upon hearing our reasons for so doing he agreed that we had chosen the wisest course, in fact the only one open to travellers who wanted to see the Bankutu. Conversation then turned upon these charming cannibals, and we learned from Monsieur Peffer something of the difficulties with which a Government official is surrounded in this district. The people around Kole are so hostile to the white man that the place is really never free from the possibility of attack; indeed, so possible is a rising of the natives at any moment that cassava is planted between the buildings actually within the station to avoid the loss of men which would ensue were it necessary to go out into the woods to fetch provisions from plantations situated at even a little distance from the post, in addition to which women working in isolated fields would never be safe from the arrows of any Bankutu who might happen to pass by even in times of so-called peace. The following incident may give some idea of the treatment white men and their native employees may expect at the hands of the Bankutu. A few days march from Kole there exists a section of the Bankutu tribe known as the Tono. These people had never in any way been subjugated by the white man’s Government, and had plundered and murdered their neighbours at their own sweet will. The _chef de poste_ at Kole determined to try and win their confidence by kindness. He accordingly sent two messengers to them requesting their chief to call upon him and to make friends with him, saying that on no account would he demand any taxes, and guaranteeing the absolute safety of any of the Tono who cared to visit him; he furthermore promised the chief a good present in trade goods if he cared to come and fetch it. A few days later the two muzzle-loaders with which the messengers had been armed were returned to the _chef de poste_ by a chief who was friendly both with him and with the Bankutu, the Tono having eaten the envoys and having sent back the guns with a message to the effect that the firearms would be useless to them, but that the white man could forward them a fresh supply of messengers as soon as he liked!

[Illustration: BANKUTU BARK HUTS.]

[Illustration: A VILLAGE IN THE EQUATORIAL FOREST.]

The _chef de poste_ knew that any attempt at reprisals on his part could only end in his finding a few deserted villages, and probably in his losing a number of men in the process, so he could do nothing but ignore the incident. Time went by, and one day the officer was amazed to learn from the friendly chief that the Tono were anxious to make his acquaintance, and if he would agree to let bygones be bygones, they would call upon him at Kole. He was delighted. He imagined that his patience with them had touched the heart of the Bankutu, and, no doubt, indulged in many wild dreams of turning his district into a happy peaceful country, where murder and cannibalism would be unknown.

Having pledged his word that no harm should befal the Tono chief and his followers, he appointed a day for a meeting at the Government station. The natives duly appeared, and, before entering the post, laid down their bows and arrows beside a little stream, coming unarmed into the presence of the white man, who, on his side, was careful to avoid any display of armed force by letting his soldiers be too much in evidence. The interview was of a highly satisfactory nature; gifts were exchanged, and the official preached a nice little homily to the Bankutu upon the desirability of peace, the foolishness of eating messengers, and the pleasant conditions which would prevail if the natives would only trust him and come often to visit him. The Tono expressed their regret at having inconvenienced the white man by dining off his servants, and promised that they would never transgress again.

Then they departed, leaving the _chef de poste_ very pleased with his day’s work. On arriving at the brook beside which they had left their arms the Tono found two or three of the soldiers’ wives washing clothes; in a moment they had shot them, and, carrying off their bodies, disappeared into the forest! So much for the good faith of the Bankutu. Obviously such incorrigible rogues require a severe lesson, and it would appear that after an outrage such as I have described a strong force should be sent into their country to administer to them the punishment that they undoubtedly deserve. But the Bankutu method of making war in their native forest is such that a military expedition would have but little chance of dealing a blow at them. The roads leading from village to village are the merest tracks, so narrow that one’s elbows brush against the bushes on either hand as one walks along them, while the forest is so dense that one can scarcely distinguish anything even a few feet from the wayside. In such a country where any shooting must take place at the shortest of ranges, the bows of the Bankutu are at least equal to the rifles of the soldiers, and their poisoned arrows are certain to kill where a bullet might only effect the slightest of wounds. It would be perfectly easy for the Bankutu to wait by the side of the track concealed in the undergrowth and quietly pick off the troops as they passed in single file, for flanking parties, if thrown out on either side of the road, would literally have to cut their way through the tangle of bushes, and would thus render the advance of the whole column so slow as to destroy any faint hope that might exist of its coming unexpectedly upon a village and surprising its inhabitants. The forest, which is almost impassable to troops attired in blouses and breeches, and encumbered by their accoutrements, scarcely hinders the movements of the scantily clad Bankutu. But the natives have other methods of warfare, hardly less effective than ambushing the advancing column, and absolutely unattended by danger to themselves. In addition to placing little spikes, steeped in deadly poison, beneath the fallen leaves on the road to wound the naked feet of the soldiers, one prick from which will often prove fatal in less than half-an-hour, they dig pits in the track, carefully concealed with a covering of leaves, at the bottom of which poisoned stakes are in readiness to impale any one who slips into them. This is a very common form of trap used in most parts of Africa for the capture of game, and the existence of which makes it necessary to walk with great caution when shooting in parts of the forest where such devices are employed. The Bankutu often dig such pits in their villages before deserting them at the approach of the troops, and place chickens upon them in the hope that the soldiers will be entrapped when they attempt to take the fowls. Another and far more ingenious trap used in war is one which consists of a bow with a poisoned arrow set, after the manner of a spring gun, in such a way that the removal of a branch across the roadway or some similar obstacle will launch forth the arrow upon its errand of death from beneath the shelter of the underwood. These automatic bow traps are often set in the deserted huts, so that the pushing aside of the doors when the soldiers search the village will release the arrows. Upon one occasion the _chef de poste_ of Kole entered a Bankutu village accompanied by his troops; as usual, the place was deserted, but the sound of a child crying attracted the officer’s attention to the edge of the forest behind the huts, where he saw a tiny baby evidently abandoned by its mother in her hasty flight into the woods. Filled with pity he hurried to the spot, and, calling to a soldier to take charge of the baby, he was about to pick it up when the soldier pulled him forcibly backwards. The man had noticed a string round the baby’s body which was connected with the bushes behind it. Examination of the bushes disclosed a spring-bow trap to which the child had been attached as bait!

These are but a few of the stratagems to which the Bankutu resort not only in time of actual war, but at any time when dealing with the white man or his servants. The _chef de poste_ at Kole finds it unwise to go even the two hours’ march inland to the spot where the Government station until recently had been situated without ten soldiers to whom ball cartridges have been served out. It is scarcely astonishing that warfare in the forest, where the soldiers perish without so much as setting eyes on an enemy, is extremely trying to the nerves of the troops. The greatest success which a military expedition could achieve would be merely the burning of a few villages, which would be rebuilt in no time without even inconveniencing the natives; and the authorities strictly prohibit the burning of villages in war. The _chef de poste_ at Kole, therefore, has about as thankless a task as could fall to the lot of man. In addition to the difficulty of his work and the risks he runs in the execution of his duty, his life is rendered miserable, and constantly threatened by the terrible nature of the climate.

Closely surrounded by the impenetrable forest, there is a lack of air at Kole which renders the great heat of noonday oppressive in the extreme, while at dusk a light grey mist descends upon the station, so damp that one’s clothes become wringing wet if one sits out of doors after sundown, and the woods emit a fœtid stench of decaying vegetation which is often nearly sufficient to make one sick if one is out in the forest as darkness comes on. The grey mist which is, I believe, common to most parts of the Congo forest, rises again very late in the morning at Kole, for the steamers which occasionally come up the Lukenye can rarely get under way before nine or ten o’clock, and I have known the mist over the parade ground to be so thick as to prevent the soldiers from drilling before eleven in the morning. Some idea of the amount of moisture in the air of the forest may be obtained when I say that a gun left uncovered in one’s tent becomes red with rust in twenty-four hours. In the daytime the atmosphere of the woods resembles that of a hot-house; at night that of a well. With a climate like this and swarms of mosquitos it is not to be wondered at that the white man is continually down with fever, and the presence of the innumerable tsetse-flies on the Lukenye adds yet another risk—that of sleeping sickness—to the already sufficient number that exist owing to the natives and the climate around Kole.

We succeeded during our stay at this salubrious post in becoming more or less friendly with one or two individuals of the Bankutu, and from them we contrived to learn a little about the manners and customs of that delightful people, in addition to their methods of war which I have just described. I have said that they are cannibals; but the term “cannibal,” which is, of course, applicable to people who only partake of human flesh at the rarest intervals in accordance with some ceremonial custom, is hardly strong enough to describe the man-eating tendencies of the Bankutu. They actually stalk and shoot men for food as other natives hunt animals, and this despite the fact that their country teems with game. But the most remarkable thing about them is that they _never bury their slaves_; no matter of what complaint he may have died, a slave is invariably eaten. The reason for this disgusting practice is the fear that the ghost of a slave might return to haunt a master who had ill-treated him, whereas if the body is eaten the Bankutu believe that the soul cannot return. The habit of eating slaves is carried to such an extent that a lazy slave is often sold as food, and in a quarrel between two Bankutu the aggrieved party will frequently kill a slave belonging to the offender and dine off his body in company with his friends. It might possibly be imagined that people so debased as the Bankutu would fall upon a human body like hyenas upon the carcase of an animal and tear it limb from limb, eating the flesh raw as they rent it from the bones, yet such is not the case. Great care is exercised upon the cooking of human meat, and it is even served up in quite a civilised manner, in little rolls like bacon. I have not given by any means all the information at my disposal with regard to the cannibalistic habits of the Bankutu, but I have said enough to show that even to this day there exists in Central Africa, in the heart of the great equatorial forest, a people whose daily lives are as wild and whose customs are as disgusting as those of any savages who figure in a boys’ book of adventure. To many people in England it may seem incredible that tribes can exist in such a state of barbarity at the beginning of the twentieth century, but, despite the opening up of Africa, the mines, the railways, the hundred and one ways in which European influence has begun to make itself felt over enormous areas of the dark continent, there are yet a great many out-of-the-way places where the savage is as much a savage to-day as he was, say, five hundred years ago. Some day, no doubt, the forest around Kole may be as peaceful a district as any in Africa, but until the Bankutu have been completely brought into subjection there can never be peace in the land. How to deal with such people is one of the hardest problems the Government has to face. It is, of course, possible that a given white man, who, possessed of infinite patience and tact, might by his own personal magnetism influence the Bankutu for good; but the process would take quite an ordinary lifetime, and lifetimes are very short in the forest. The only course appears to me to be to encourage the establishment of settlements in the Bankutu country by some such friendly and progressive peoples as the Batetela, the excellent results of whose occupation of the north of the Lodja I shall describe in due course. I hear that some of the Batetela who mutinied several years ago when serving in the army, and who, after being a scourge to the southern part of the Congo, have only recently been captured, are to be allowed to establish themselves in the district around Kole. The Bankutu are far too suspicious to combine with the mutineers in any future rising against the Government, and one may hope that the ex-soldiers may soon be able to render their villages as prosperous as have their kinsmen farther to the east.

[Illustration: THE EQUATORIAL FOREST.]

If to no one else, the forest should prove attractive to the naturalist, although its impenetrable character renders the stalking of game by a white man almost a waste of time. The woods abound in animal life, very much of which must be quite unknown to zoologists in Europe, and which will, in all probability, remain unknown for many years to come owing to the inhospitable nature of the land and the people. Monkeys are represented by many species, several of them doubtless undescribed, while pigs and small antelopes abound. We were lucky enough to obtain specimens of both male and female of a very small duiker which had not previously been brought to Europe, and which Mr. Oldfield Thomas has done me the honour of naming after myself, _cephalophos simpsoni_. This little antelope is of a vandyke brown colour on the back, passing through various shades to a light brown on the chest; its horns are very small. It must exist in considerable numbers around Kole, but one’s chances of obtaining a shot at the wary little beast are extremely remote. The antelope family is also represented in this neighbourhood by a bush-buck, a sitatunga, and at least one other duiker. Elephant and buffalo are not to be found near Kole, and the Lukenye is too rapid to form a haunt of hippopotami; large game is therefore conspicuous by its absence. I may here mention that during our wanderings in the Kasai we never heard of the existence of any animal which could possibly have been the okapi; but I should not like to say that it may not exist in the forest to the north of the Sankuru. Our stay at Kole was not marked by any act of aggression on the part of the Bankutu, and passed off without any serious discomfort to ourselves, with the exception of sundry attacks of malaria, to which I was now very frequently subject. During our sojourn there the _chef de poste_ received a visit from another official who really belonged to the administration of the district of Lac Leopold II., but who, finding himself with his steamer on the Lukenye river within easy reach of Kole, had continued his voyage to pay a visit to the _chef de poste_. Upon his return he narrowly escaped drowning, for his vessel was swept by the force of the stream on to some rocks near Dikese, and sank in a few moments, the European captain saving himself by swimming, while the Government official was rescued by one of the native crew. No lives were lost, but the white men and crew who were thus forced to take shelter in the forest were lucky to escape being eaten, a fate which overtook the passengers on the _Ville de Bruxelles_ when that vessel foundered on the Upper Congo in 1909. We had wished to visit the Tono, whom I have already mentioned as living a few days’ march from Kole, for this sub-tribe of the Bankutu were said to manufacture a certain kind of strange currency of which we were anxious to obtain specimens, but such a journey was impossible. Lieutenant Peffer told us that we could certainly go if we wished to do so, but that he himself should insist upon accompanying us with at least thirty of the fifty soldiers which constituted the garrison of Kole. To go with the troops meant that we should never behold a native and would probably be ambushed on the way, so we abandoned all idea of carrying out an extended tour in the country of the Bankutu, from whom we could really hope to glean very little information beyond what we had been able to pick up from a few friendly individuals. We accordingly, after a little over three weeks spent at Kole, took the opportunity afforded by the arrival of a small steam tug to proceed up the Lukenye to Lodja, by no means sorry to leave behind us such treacherous natives as the Bankutu.