CHAPTER VI

AT THE COURT OF AN AFRICAN KING

We spent a few days at Idanga awaiting the arrival of a steamer going down-river to carry us to Bolombo, whence we were to start upon our march to the capital of the Bushongo nation. During the greater part of our stay the Kasai Company’s agent was absent, visiting the villages in the interior behind the forest which borders the Sankuru, and which at Idanga is a comparatively narrow strip of woodland on the left bank of the river; we therefore encamped in his factory garden, and occupied our time in labelling and packing curios, writing up notes upon the forest tribes, and resting after our weary marches in the forest. Idanga has its drawbacks, for there is little to be done there either by the naturalist or the ethnologist, and the mosquitos and tsetse-flies are more numerous than is pleasant; but after a stay in the forest one can sit all day and gaze with enjoyment at the view, extensive compared with any obtainable in the woods, over the fine broad reach of the Sankuru, at the time of our visit much broken by sandbanks, for the dry season was now fast drawing to its close and the water was at its lowest. Upon the sandbanks numberless temporary huts had been erected by the local Bushongo, who could be seen from the factory busily employed all day long at making and setting fish-traps, by means of which they caught a lot of large fish, always bringing the best of them for sale to us. One day we hired a canoe from the fishermen and went down-stream to Bena Dibele to call upon the Italian cavalry officer who had recently taken over the command of the post, and to bring away the baggage we had left there upon setting out into the forest. We found Lieutenant Morretti’s civilian assistant in a very bad state of health. There was, I think, little really the matter with him, but he had allowed the gloom of the surrounding forest to get upon his nerves to such an extent that he could talk of nothing but death, and mistook a small piece of metal lying on the ground for the number-plate of his coffin! He was eventually moved to rather more cheerful surroundings, and, I believe, quite recovered his mental equilibrium. In the forest it is absolutely necessary to force oneself to look at the bright side of everything; if once one allows oneself to become pessimistic one is pretty sure to break down in health; and the bright side of life in the forest is not always easy to find.

While we were calling at Dibele a Government steamer came down the river having on board Captain the Hon. W. G. Thesiger, D.S.O., then his Majesty’s consul at Boma. This gentleman had just completed a tour of some few months’ duration over a large area of the southern Congo, in the course of which he had paid a brief visit to the capital of the Bushongo people and made the acquaintance of their king. Captain Thesiger informed us that he had seen many beautiful wood-carvings, chief among which were the portrait statues of the two old-time national heroes, which were apparently regarded with the greatest reverence by the king and the people. We had heard of the existence of these statues during our stay at Misumba, but up to now had been doubtful if we should be allowed to see them. Captain Thesiger reassured us on this point, but seemed to think that there would be no chance of our being able to purchase one for the Museum; we dared not hope so much ourselves; but I shall have more to say about these statues later. Captain Thesiger gave us another interesting piece of information: he had recently visited Kanda Kanda, a Government station about one hundred and sixty miles to the south-east of Luebo, and had there found that lions had just appeared in the neighbourhood. From what we are able to gather, lions are unknown north of this district; although I have seen it stated that the Sankuru was their northern limit, I was not able to obtain any evidence to show that they have been found so far north as the middle course of that river. It has been rumoured that a lion was killed near the confluence of the Kwango and the Kasai some few years back, but I believe the rumour is generally discredited. Around Kanda Kanda the country is better supplied with game than the districts we visited, but even there the newly arrived lions had taken to man-eating to such an extent as to cause a panic in the villages. As soon as we had packed our curios at Idanga we were ready to start for the Mushenge, so the Kasai Company’s steamer found us waiting to go on board with as little delay as possible when it descended the river on its way from Batempa to Dima. The voyage passed off without incident, excepting that one night during a tornado, our camp on the shore was very nearly set on fire by sparks driven by the wind from the fires of the crew; only the dampness saved our tents from catching fire. In the matter of fires one’s “boys” are usually extremely careless, making them in the most dangerous places, and one has to be constantly on the look-out for accidents arising from the placing of a candle too close to the sloping roof of one’s tent, or some other equally foolish and avoidable cause. It seems remarkable that natives whose habitations are very inflammable should be so careless, but it is a fact.

At Bolombo we stayed for a few days awaiting the arrival of an answer from the king of the Bushongo, to whom we sent a message informing him of our desire to visit his capital, and inquiring if he would send porters to carry our loads from the river. In due course a number of men arrived, under the leadership of one of the Nyimi’s (this is the title of the king) courtiers, who told us that his master had heard of our visit to the eastern part of his territory, and had expected to see us earlier at his capital; now that we were coming he would be pleased to welcome us. We noticed one or two differences, even among the porters who came to carry our baggage, between the Bangongo of the Lubudi River and the natives from the country around the Mushenge. Whereas at Misumba only the elders wore little conical caps of plaited grass upon their top-knots, this head-gear seemed to be quite commonly worn by the people of Mushenge, and we looked in vain for signs of the lavish application of tukula dye to the person and loin-cloths which is so noticeable at Misumba; moreover, most of the men who came to carry for us wore European cotton around their waists. We crossed the Sankuru in a large dug-out as soon as all our baggage had been transported over the river. We had not very much with us, for our stock of provisions was well-nigh at an end, and we were relying upon receiving from Luebo many cases of stores which should have been there since the beginning of the year awaiting our arrival. Also we carried with us very little in the way of trade goods, for we knew that there was a factory near the Mushenge where we could purchase such articles as would be most readily accepted by the natives. The country between the Sankuru and the Mushenge is hilly. The belt of forest that borders the river is only about six miles wide, and gives place to grass land, fairly thickly studded with small trees in which extensive patches of woodland are very numerous. Near to the angle formed by the confluence of the Sankuru and the Kasai the forest belts of both these rivers meet, and the country is therefore densely wooded. As one goes on southward towards the Mushenge the plains become more extensive and less studded with trees until one reaches a high grassy plateau about twenty miles south of the Sankuru which forms the watershed between that river and the Luchwadi (marked Lotjadi on the accompanying map), a stream that flows westwards into the Kasai. The distance from Bolombo to the Mushenge is only about thirty miles, in a direct line, but we marched by easy stages in order to see something of the villages we passed through, and did not arrive at the capital until the fifth day after our start from the Sankuru. The villages in this part of the country disappointed us very much after becoming accustomed to associate the Bushongo with such beautiful villages as Misumba. In place of the neatly decorated houses which we had admired so much among the Bangongo we found dwellings of a similar design, but built simply of palm leaves, with no attempt at ornamentation, and little or none of the regularity with which the villages of the eastern Bushongo are laid out. The places were often very pretty, with their huts dotted about under the shade of fine old raphia or elais palms, but the beauty was the beauty of nature, and showed little of the artistic tendencies which we knew the natives must possess. We subsequently learned that the people of the eastern part of the Bushongo territory are famous for the skill with which they build and decorate their houses, and that we must not set up Misumba as a standard whereby to judge all the Bushongo villages. At the entrance to one hamlet we came across a quaint “charm” overhanging the road. This consisted of a square piece of wickerwork, suspended from a pole, which had been literally riddled with arrows, many of which were still sticking in it. At another place we found a very old elephant’s tusk, of considerable size, firmly planted point downwards in the ground under a shelter in the village street. We learned that it was formerly the custom when the great king paid a State visit to the villages to plant an elephant’s tusk in such a manner that he could lean back upon it when sitting upon his throne; the tusks so placed were never removed, but were left sticking in the ground as a souvenir to the villagers of the visit of their king. The tusk we saw was so weather-worn that a small piece of it which I brought away has not been recognised as ivory by any one to whom I have shown it. I ought, perhaps, to say that this souvenir of a former king is not regarded with respect by the villagers or I should, of course, not have touched it, much less removed a piece from inside its cavity; we were always most careful to avoid hurting the natives’ feelings by treating with contempt anything they might possibly consider sacred, for had we done so we could not have expected to gain their confidence and learn anything of their customs and beliefs. A negro is very unlikely to tell you any legend or piece of tribal history if he thinks there is any chance of your disbelieving or laughing at it.

Buffaloes are to be found in the country between the Mushenge and the Sankuru, and we came across the fresh tracks of one or two small herds, but we did not make any serious attempt to hunt them, as I intended to take a short trip in search of sport after we had settled down at the capital. Upon the fifth day we were ferried in small canoes across the lagoons around the stream of the Luchwadi, the boats winding in and out amidst a tangle of the most glorious vegetation, and thence walked the remaining five miles or so to the Mushenge. Leaving the mission station of the Pères de Scheut about half a mile to the left of the main road, we ascended the steep slope to the crest of the hill on which the capital stands and found ourselves almost unexpectedly in the village, which we had not seen until we entered it. There were no signs of any extensive cultivation by the roadside which would have indicated that we were approaching a large native settlement.

Upon our arrival we were conducted at once towards the dwelling of the great chief, but on reaching the gates of his “palace” yard the king came out to meet us accompanied by one of the Belgian priests from the mission, who were preparing to leave the Mushenge in a few days, the mission station having been abandoned. The priest, after exchanging greetings with us, left us to make the acquaintance of our host, and we looked with no little curiosity upon the man who ruled over so remarkable a people as the Bushongo. Of medium height (short by comparison with many of his stalwart subjects) but remarkably well-built, Kwete Peshanga Kena looked every inch a chief. He was dressed in native costume; a very long pink loin-cloth, gathered into many folds around his waist, was held in place by a girdle in which was stuck a broad-bladed knife, similar to that carried by the meanest of his subjects, except that its blade was neatly inlaid with a design in brass resembling a crocodile; he wore a small conical cap upon his head, held in place by a copper hatpin, the sign of an elder, for only court dignitaries may wear hatpins made of copper. The only ornaments he displayed were two bracelets on each arm, of iron and of copper, an iron ring on each of his big toes, and a thin strip of zebra skin, imported from the far south, worn like a bandolier over one shoulder. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Nyimi’s appearance is his face. I have seldom seen so strong a face in a negro; he has steady, unflinching eyes, a high forehead, a nose and lips which are quite fine for a negro, and a very well-shaped, determined jaw. He greeted us quite simply, and when he spoke it was in such a quiet, almost musical voice that one might almost have imagined, were it not for the Chituba language in which we conversed, that one was listening to a refined, well-educated European. The Nyimi was attended by a few old men, evidently dignitaries of his court, and a score or so of younger ones, most of them probably slaves. He conducted us to a spot in the middle of the principal street of the Mushenge where we could conveniently pitch our tents, and then we all sat down under a shelter formed by the pent-shaped roof of a hut, which was waiting to be placed bodily in position when walls had been built to support it, while the king inquired our business in the village. Torday had heard that the Nyimi was an exceptionally intelligent native, and had determined to take him fully into our confidence. He therefore laid before him the objects of our journey. He asked if the chief had not noticed that, as the influence of the white man advances, the natives change their tribal customs; it was to write down and so preserve these customs together with the religious beliefs of the people that we had come. He pointed out how many native arts were dying out, and he said that we desired to purchase objects of native manufacture in order to place them for all the world to see in a large house in the capital town of our country, where were kept specimens of the manufactures of all the peoples in the world. Thus any one visiting the house would see the carvings, the pile-cloth, and the ironwork of the Bushongo, and would realise what wonderful workmen these people are. “Often,” said Torday, “you give away some keepsake to a white man, but what becomes of it? It is lost, or in years to come no one will know what it is or whence it came. Everything that you or your people will sell to me will go to the big house I have mentioned, and there remain for all time as evidence of the skill and greatness of your race.” Thus he explained to the chief the uses of the British Museum.

Kwete at once grasped the situation, and remarked that the greatness of his people as manufacturers of objects of art was fast passing away; he would be glad, therefore, to think that their handiwork was being kept and exhibited, and he would give orders that any one who wished to dispose of any carvings, &c., should offer them for sale to us. With regard to the history and customs of his tribe, he said that he would himself furnish us with all the particulars he could, and that he would summon various old men from his country to supply any information which he himself might not possess; he wished it to be written down. Several times in the months which followed the king remarked to us, “Writing: that is the strength of the white man.” Of course the Nyimi had heard of our stay at Misumba, and no doubt had been told that we were popular there, and had done no harm to any one, so he was probably predisposed towards us before we arrived at his capital, and he subsequently became our firm friend. Having welcomed us to his village, Kwete returned to his own dwelling, accompanied by his courtiers, and left us to walk over to the Kasai Company’s factory to order a supply of trade goods, and inquire if our provisions had arrived from Luebo. The factory lies about three-quarters of an hour’s walk to the south of the village, on the opposite side of a ravine in which there flows a little brook; the mission station is a similar distance to the east of the capital. We found the company’s agent at home, and fell to discussing with him what goods to offer in exchange for curios. He informed us that cotton materials sold well, and that cowrie shells were very acceptable as small change, in addition to the salt which is so commonly used as currency in the Kasai. We accordingly purchased a good amount of commodities, and then asked if any boxes had come for us from Luebo. Nothing had arrived. This was very annoying, for we had expected that our stores would have been waiting for us, and we had practically nothing left in the way of tea, flour, sugar, and the other necessities of life which one brings out from Europe; so we despatched a messenger at once to Luebo, asking for the things to be sent on without delay, and meanwhile settled down to exist on short commons and commence our work in the Mushenge.

[Illustration: A BELLE OF THE MUSHENGE.]

[Illustration: A BUSHONGO ELDER.]

The first thing to be done was to explore the village. The Mushenge is by no means so imposing a village as one might expect to find as the capital of the greatest tribe of the Kasai. The Bushongo are far too conservative in their ideas to have taken to building houses of plaster modelled upon a white man’s dwelling, and, as I have remarked, the neatly decorated huts seen at Misumba are peculiar to the eastern sub-tribes of the Bushongo; the dwellings at the Mushenge are simple rectangular huts built of palm leaves, such as the natives have inhabited for many generations. Each of their huts stands in its own little courtyard, which is surrounded by a wall of palm leaves, about six or seven feet in height, so that in passing through the village one sees very few of the buildings themselves, the roadway being bordered by the walls of the courtyards. Between these yards is a regular labyrinth of narrow tortuous passages, which constitute the by-roads of the place, there being two wide streets, in one of which our camp was pitched, running through the village. As the Mushenge has no other inhabitants than those attached to the court of the king, the place is not a large one; I should doubt if it contains two thousand people. To the west of the village, just outside the cluster of huts, is an open space, cleared of scrub and high grass, where dances and public meetings are very frequently held. In the midst of his capital is situated the dwelling of the king. It is surrounded by a higher wall than any other houses in the place, and inside this palisade are innumerable courtyards connected by small doorways, in which are built store-houses, treasure-houses, accommodation for the king’s wives and for his personal slaves, and a guard-room. The guard-room is situated at the entrance to the courtyard through which one must pass if one would visit the royal sleeping-house, and there are always a few slaves waiting in it to carry messages for the king, and to keep out intruders. These sentries are unarmed. At the entrance to the small enclosure in which the king’s private house stands is a shed, beneath which the Nyimi sits when in council with his elders or when trying a case, for he acts as judge himself in all important cases; and here it was that we used to visit the king during the early part of our stay at the Mushenge, before we became so friendly with him that he would receive us anywhere and without any attendants. The private house of the king consists of a very large replica of a Misumba hut, with the black patterns worked on its walls which are so noticeable a feature in the villages of the eastern Bushongo; it is divided into two spacious rooms, in one of which is situated another rectangular house, exactly resembling in shape, ornamentation, and size a hut of Misumba; in this inner house the king sleeps. The roof of the palace is supported by massive wooden pillars, elaborately carved, and in the centre of the little doorway is a beautifully carved door-post dividing the entrance into two. Door-posts such as this, some of them of great age, are common at the Mushenge, and one often sees specimens of wood-carving of an artistic quality, worthy of place in any European mansion, supporting the doorway of the most dilapidated leaf huts. The other buildings in the precincts of the palace are mostly of the ordinary pattern used in the village, but of rather larger size.

I have mentioned the fact that one sees no plantations around the Mushenge when entering the village from the north. In days gone by it was not customary for the Nyimi or his courtiers to cultivate any land for themselves, their wants being supplied by the other villages in the neighbourhood. It is therefore only quite recently that any plantations at all have been made near the dwelling of the king. Acting on the advice of a Government official, the Nyimi has now ordered plantations to be made around his capital, and has thus removed a considerable burden from his subjects, who had previously to cultivate sufficient land to supply him and his court with food as well as themselves. As a result many acres are now planted with ground nuts, cassava, and maize, especially on the western side of the village. These plantations are concealed from view by woodlands, so that any one who does not wander much around the outskirts of the place might easily visit the Mushenge and come away with the impression that its plantations are extremely meagre, very few of them being visible from the paths leading to the mission or to the factory. During our stay of nearly four months at the capital we took our exercise in the form of rambles with the gun, and it was when out in search of guinea-fowl that we were able to form some estimate of the extent of the plantations. Many of the fields had only recently been cleared of forest or grass in 1908, but by the time these lines are in print the output of food-stuffs from them should be very considerable. In following the advice of the Government official with regard to the formation of these plantations, the Nyimi has displayed an inclination to introduce useful innovations suggested by the white man, which is characteristic of him, but which is not shared by his extremely conservative councillors. In days gone by the Bushongo have been a very mighty people; fifty or sixty years ago it was sufficient for a man to be able to say, “I am a subject of the Nyimi,” to ensure his being received with honour in the villages of the neighbouring tribes. The more primitive peoples who dwell around them used to respect the Bushongo; they admired their skill in carving, weaving, and embroidering; they admired the glamour of the court of their king; they respected the ruler who held sway over such extensive dominions. But when the white man appeared in Central Africa, their neighbours realised that there are peoples more advanced, more powerful, and more clever than the Bushongo, and the fact that nowadays the Nyimi would be prevented by the European from calling his people to arms and annihilating one of his weaker neighbours, has helped to lessen the respect in which he and his people are held. But the Bushongo, particularly the older people, are just as proud as ever they were. The inhabitants of the Mushenge despise not only all foreigners, but even members of their own tribe who do not happen to be attached to the court of the king. They have in their language the “bokono,” which corresponds to our “yokel” or “country cousin,” and is applied to the Bushongo who live in villages other than the Mushenge; these people are considered by the courtiers to be less educated and refined than themselves. In the capital are to be found many descendants of former kings, so its people are really the cream of Bushongo aristocracy. These people, particularly the old councillors of the king, are much opposed to the presence of the European in their country, and to the introduction of any of his ways. As a rule most of the high dignitaries of his court are not officially present when the king interviews a white man, but any one who knows them personally may find them in the background of many a group photographed by travellers, just mingling with the throng, but always at hand to hear what their ruler may be saying to the European. Most of the white men who have visited the Nyimi are probably in ignorance of the existence of elders of especial importance, but in reality the king can do practically nothing without the consent of his council.

In 1904 the Bushongo took up arms against the white man, but the king himself was much opposed to the rising, which was practically forced upon him, so he informed us, when we became better acquainted with him, by his elders. The insurrection, it appears, was of a very tame character, partly because the Nyimi entered into it in a very halfhearted spirit, which doubtless soon spread through the ranks of his warriors, and partly because the Bushongo, having for centuries been considered invincible by their neighbours, had no opportunity of maintaining the military qualities which they must once have possessed, and had become more accustomed to the arts of peace than to the stern business of war. The Bangongo did not, I believe, take any part whatever in the rising of 1904, and their absence from the field deprived the Nyimi of some of his best fighting men. The present-day youth of the Mushenge is certainly no warrior; he is a typical “young man about town.” He loves to idle away his days lounging about the streets or around the precincts of the royal dwelling in no official capacity whatever, but merely as a hanger-on to the court, and to sit up far into the night talking and joking with his friends, a habit which soon lowers him in the estimation of the European traveller whose tent happens to be pitched in the middle of the local “Piccadilly” and who desires to sleep after a hard day’s work. The natives of the Mushenge sit up much later than do the natives of any other place we visited, and in order to recover from the strain of the gay life in the capital the children of the courtiers are frequently sent out into the neighbouring hamlets to visit their country relations.

[Illustration: BUSHONGO ELDERS DANCING.]

Life at the Mushenge is certainly gay. A certain amount of work is got through owing to the plantations, but the clearing of the ground is done mainly by slaves and the cultivation by the women, so that it does not fall upon the young men of the Bushongo; and as every third day is kept as a “bank-holiday,” no one is overburdened with toil. The men can very often find employment whereby to earn some European cloth by carrying loads to and from the Kasai Company’s factory, and the cloth thus earned is rapidly replacing the palm fibre material formerly always worn around the waist. The gaieties of the Mushenge usually take the form of dances; the Nyimi is a most enthusiastic dancer, and likes nothing better than to hold State dances in the open space to the east of the village, in which he himself takes part. The first dance we saw was a large one which was held shortly after our arrival in the village to celebrate the conclusion of a period of mourning through which the nation had just passed owing to the death of the king’s sister.

As the sun was beginning to sink a little and the great heat of the afternoon became rather less oppressive, the elders assembled in the dancing-ground attired in all their ceremonial finery. This consisted of voluminous loin-cloths of raphia fibre bordered by strips of the same material elaborately embroidered in patterns, and in some cases ornamented by fringes of innumerable small tassels; around their waists they wore belts covered with beads or cowrie shells, and upon their heads nodded plumes of gaily coloured feathers. They carried in their hands large iron knives, the hilts of which were of carefully carved wood. A throng of ordinary natives and slaves sat upon the ground to watch the proceedings, forming three sides of a square, the fourth side being left for members of the royal household. The king walked the hundred yards or so from his palace gates to the dancing-ground in a procession formed by dignitaries attached to his person, preceded by an elder blowing discordant notes upon a horn made of the hollowed tusk of a young elephant, and followed by his wives and their attendant women. The Nyimi has about five-and-twenty wives, but the number of women of the royal household present at the dance must have been close upon a hundred. The Nyimi, dressed in a scarlet loin-cloth covered with cowries, huge armlets and leg coverings of cloth decorated with beads, and wearing a large plume of crested eagles’ feathers, sat cross-legged upon a dais under a canopy of mats, leaning his back upon an elephant’s tusk planted point downwards in the ground. As soon as the king was seated the ceremonies commenced. Only a few of the people took part in the actual dancing, which to begin with consisted in single individuals executing a few steps and then sitting down, but later on groups of elders danced, leaping round in a circle and brandishing their knives, the brilliant colours of their feathers and costumes making up a brilliant picture in the light of the setting sun. Lastly, the king himself left his dais and strutted with a peculiar stiff gait around the ground, amid the enthusiastic cheering of his people, preceded by an elder who carefully removed any sticks or other small obstacles from his path. The elder who performs this duty possesses a title and occupies a high position in the court. We had been given places close to the dais on which the king had sat, so we had been able to obtain a splendid view of the proceedings, and had found out from natives sitting near us who were the numerous officials taking part in the dance. We witnessed several dances similar to the one I have described, and were much struck with the manner of the king when he talked to the dignitaries who performed in them. He would walk about among the elders nodding to one, speaking earnestly to another, cracking a joke with a third, evidently taking care to avoid giving offence by talking to one more than to another or by omitting to greet any particular councillor who might be present. The countenances of the old aristocrats to whom he spoke showed clearly in what respect they hold their king, and how a word from him is held to be an honour to the man to whom it is addressed. But if the big ceremonial dances are interesting and even beautiful to look at, there is another ceremony, in which only one man takes part in, that is much more interesting. It is a ghost dance. Many years ago a henpecked chief devised a plan for frightening his wives into obedience by disguising himself as a fearsome ghost.

That is the origin of the ceremony which is still gone through periodically by the present king of the Bushongo. He tells his wives that he is going to visit a neighbouring village and will be absent all day. He then secretly retires into a hut near the royal dwelling and dresses himself in garments made of raphia fibre covered with cowrie shells; no part of his person is exposed to view when he is arrayed in this dress, and he even wears on his head a carved wooden mask rendered hideous by the application of red dye, to the top of which is affixed a huge fan-shaped plume of eagles’ feathers. Thus attired he walks around the village accompanied by yelling crowds and preceded by drummers. Every now and then he pauses in his promenade and indulges in a wild dance, leaping furiously up and down and violently shaking himself. Overcome by these exertions, which, overpowered as he is by a mass of heavy clothing, must be most exhausting during the heat of a tropical afternoon, he breathlessly sinks on to a stool and is fanned by his attendant courtiers while he takes a few moments’ repose. At the conclusion of his tour of the village, he is placed (often together with one or more of his little sons) in a large wooden box fitted with carrying poles, in which he is borne shoulder high about the village by the populace, even grave-faced old warriors fighting for the honour of carrying the royal burden. The fact that the king’s feet are covered during the dance and that he is carried in the box are interesting survivals of a custom now no longer observed. In former times (even until quite recent years) the king of the Bushongo was never allowed to touch the ground! Whenever he wished to move he was carried, and whenever he desired to sit down he sat upon a slave! Even nowadays should the Nyimi wish to sit, a slave will throw himself upon his hands and knees to form a chair for his master; and if when sitting upon an ordinary chair or stool the king stretches out his leg, a slave will usually interpose his own foot between his master’s foot and the ground. There is exhibited in the Ethnographical Gallery of the British Museum an enlarged photograph of Kwete sitting upon a slave in the manner I have described. The person of the Nyimi is considered sacred, for he is believed to be the direct descendant of God. As a matter of fact the present king is the one hundred and twenty-first ruler of his dynasty to occupy the Bushongo throne. The succession to the kingship is in the female line. Torday was able to obtain precise information as to the names of all the Bushongo kings, for the king himself is obliged to know the names of all his predecessors, and there is, too, a court dignitary whose duty it is to carry the history of the people in his head, and many of the elders of the Mushenge pride themselves upon their historical knowledge. Torday checked the statements of all these informants in every way that he could think of and found no discrepancy in them. The work of compiling the history of the people, and of writing down and considering the various legends which bear upon it, constituted the greater part of his labours at the Mushenge.

[Illustration: THE NYIMI IN HIS GHOST-DANCE.]

[Illustration: AN ELDER DISPLAYING A STATUE.]

From the legends, as well as from certain evidence in the culture of the people, Torday has been able to determine that, many centuries ago, the Bushongo migrated from the north, possibly from the Shari River. It is not my purpose here to discuss the history of this remarkable tribe, nor to relate their legends; it would take a whole volume to do justice to the subject, and Torday has, in collaboration with Mr. T. A. Joyce of the British Museum, already published the scientific results of our visit to their country; but I mention these matters to show how extraordinarily complete are the traditions of the Bushongo, a people to whom writing, of course, is unknown, and who possess no record of their history other than that handed down from generation to generation, and retained in the memories of the elders. One figure looms large in Bushongo history—that of the King Shamba Bolongongo, the greatest of their national heroes. This chief ruled at the time when his tribe was at the zenith of its power, and he appears to have been a remarkably enlightened king. In his young days he travelled widely to the west, even reaching as far as the Kancha River; and in thinking of this journey one must remember that before the arrival of the European in Africa the natives practically never left the territory of their own tribes, and rarely knew more of the country around them than could be visited in a day’s march. Shamba’s journey, therefore, was a very extraordinary one. Furthermore, he travelled with his eyes open, and introduced among the Bushongo on his return many innovations which had struck him as useful during his wanderings. At the commencement of the seventeenth century this negro chief had ideas so advanced that he issued an order forbidding his troops to take more life in war than was absolutely necessary, and instructing them to, where possible, gain their victories by temporarily disabling their enemies. Until one has visited Central Africa, and to some extent studied the various tribes with whom one comes in contact, it is hard to believe that such humane and civilised ideas could have emanated from the brain of a negro despot. One is too apt to imagine that all African natives were, before the arrival of the European, as savage and as degraded as are the Bankutu of the great forest. The Bushongo offer a striking proof to the contrary. Another curious custom introduced by Shamba is that of never carrying a knife when there is no moon; it is forbidden by the tribal law to do so. This rule was no doubt found necessary to keep down treacherous murders in the darkness, and it has given rise to the habit of wearing a wooden imitation of a knife stuck into the girdle when the moon is not shining, for the youth of the Mushenge would not consider his costume complete without something in his belt. When confronted with a long list of chiefs it is very difficult to fix with any certainty the dates at which any one of them sat upon the throne. It is quite possible, for instance, that two or three kings may, in troublous times, have succeeded one another in the course of a single year. In the case of Shamba, however, Torday was able to fix his date at the commencement of the seventeenth century with certainty, as during the reign of his successor there occurred a total eclipse of the sun, a phenomenon which is duly remembered as an incident in Bushongo history. Shamba’s words are still quoted upon many occasions by the people of his tribe, and he appears to have made many trite remarks which have become proverbs. “To every man his wife, to every dog his bone, and you will have peace in the village,” is an example of one of these sayings.

At the time of Shamba, Bushongo art had reached a very high standard. The Nyimi one day showed to us the statues of former kings about which Captain Thesiger had spoken, and among which was a portrait of Shamba. This was a wonderful piece of wood-carving, one of the finest examples of Bushongo work that we came across, and it is no exaggeration to say that the figure bears quite a resemblance in the face to the descendant to Shamba who occupies the throne to-day. The statue is in the British Museum, so is the photograph of the present Nyimi—my readers can observe the likeness for themselves. The purchase of this statue was one of the most difficult things that Torday accomplished during his journey in the Kasai. It not only belonged to the nation, and so was not the personal property of the king, but it was regarded with the greatest reverence by the natives. Some objects are held very sacred by the Bushongo. For example, there exists an ivory trumpet which led to a serious war because a visitor from another village made a scratch upon it with his finger when examining it. The statues, four in number, of the heroes which the Nyimi showed to us were regarded with a respect similar to that accorded to the trumpet. We were, of course, most anxious to secure these wonderful specimens of carving for the National Museum, but at first it seemed highly improbable that we should succeed in doing so. Torday commenced by tactfully sounding the Nyimi as to whether he would be much opposed to the sale of these treasures, and rather to our surprise we learned that he would not. He had fully understood what Torday had told him about the uses of the Museum as a treasure-house for such objects, and he was content that the statues of his ancestors should find a permanent home in it. “I would sell them to you if they were mine,” he said, “but if I suggest such a thing to my councillors they will immediately oppose the idea. You must talk to the elders yourself, and tell them that I do not wish to let the statues go; then, in their usual spirit of contrariness, they may desire to sell them.” Torday thereupon proceeded to win over the elders. This necessitated a good deal of expenditure of trade goods in presents to the various dignitaries who would have a voice in the matter of the sale, and occupied a considerable time, for each councillor had to be interviewed separately and in secret when Torday discussed this all-important question. Eventually, owing to Torday’s persuasive powers, and to the fact that our interest in their customs had caused the elders to take a liking to us, all the dignitaries concerned agreed to use their influence with the king to induce him to sell us the statues.

[Illustration: THE STATUE OF SHAMBA BOLONGONGO (NOW IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM).]

At a solemn gathering of the elders the matter was discussed. The Nyimi told us afterwards that he had let it appear that he was not desirous of parting with the treasures, but when the council had urged him to do so in order that all the world might see and marvel at them in the museum he had agreed to let them go too, and the question of price was then raised. The price demanded for the first statue was a very high one, to be paid mainly in a kind of dark red cloth which we could purchase from the Kasai Company, but we could not let such an opportunity go by of securing so important an object, and were, therefore, obliged to pay what was asked. As time went on Torday managed, by the same means, to secure all the four statues that we had seen, three of which are now on view at the museum. They are, I believe, considered by scientists to be some of the most remarkable objects of native manufacture that have been brought out of Central Africa.

It may seem rather like vandalism to deprive the Bushongo people of the statues to which such importance is attached—it seemed so to us at the time—but when one remembers that the respect with which they are regarded will, as the inevitable change in native customs and beliefs following upon the introduction of European ideas gradually spreads over the dark continent, slowly, perhaps, but surely fade away until the statues, if left at the Mushenge, would have come to be looked upon as valueless, one cannot help thinking that it is better that such objects should be permanently preserved in a place where they are appreciated, and where they run the smallest risk of damage or destruction. If left in the care of the Nyimi such things are constantly exposed to the danger of loss by fire or damage by white ants; in years to come they would very likely have been given away to any casual traveller when the Bushongo had ceased to care about them, and thus perhaps be lost for ever. As it is they are safe; and I do not think that we can reproach ourselves for putting them in a place of safety. We collected in the Mushenge a large number of other objects illustrative of Bushongo art, including some very fine specimens of the velvet-like pile cloth made of raphia fibre and embroidered with many curious patterns, each of which has its meaning and its name.

Among the many pieces of elaborate wood-carving that we purchased were some very curious “divining” instruments, by means of which crimes are brought home to their perpetrators by a fetish-man. These instruments consisted of models of crocodiles, rather conventional in shape, about a foot in length, hewn from solid wood and ornamented with carefully carved patterns upon the sides; the backs of the creatures are flat. The method of using the diviner is as follows:—When a man has lost something which he thinks may have been stolen, he goes to the fetish-man and, after paying him a fee, for the services of the magician are never given for nothing, requests him to find out the name of the thief. The divining instrument is then produced, and the fetish-man commences to rub its flat back with a small wooden disc, repeating, as he does so, the names of every one who might possibly be the guilty party. When the name of the culprit is mentioned, the disc refuses to be moved along the crocodile’s back, thereby indicating the person to whom the poison test is to be applied. If after swallowing the poison the suspect does not die, he is paid heavy damages by the man who has caused him to undergo the ordeal by suggesting his name to the wizard as the possible thief. If he dies—well, he was guilty, and there is one thief less among the Bushongo.

We secured a number of carved pieces of tukula, the meaning of which we were for some time at a loss to understand. We discovered that when a man dies it is usual for his widows to distribute these objects among his relations and intimate friends as souvenirs of the deceased, a custom which resembles very closely the old English habit of giving away mourning rings. The death of a Court dignitary and the investiture of his successor gives occasion for a lot of ceremonial. During our stay at the capital an important functionary, whose duties resemble those of a herald, died, and the king ordered a mourning dance to be held in honour of his memory. This dance, which was not in the least mournful, was similar to the dances so frequently held at the Mushenge, and consisted of a number of gorgeously arrayed elders dancing round in a circle, brandishing their great ceremonial knives. The body of the dead herald was in the meantime lying in state in a shed specially erected for the purpose in the bush, a hundred yards or so outside the village. It was encased in a coffin made of mats, and was guarded by the dead man’s female relatives. Eventually his lying-in-state became almost intolerable to any one living close at hand, for many days elapsed before the corpse was buried, but it gave us an opportunity of observing the funeral rites of the Bushongo.

I have alluded so often to the courtiers of the Nyimi and to his council that I ought to give my readers some idea of the composition of the king’s household. The full number of dignitaries amounts to about one hundred and forty, but there is an upper chamber of a very few of the highest dignitaries, such as the prime minister and the commander-in-chief of the warriors. All sorts of officials make up the one hundred and forty. Heralds, military officers, magistrates, representatives of outlying districts, a number of female officials, the man who picks up obstacles in the king’s path, the keeper of the records, and representatives of the various arts and crafts of the Bushongo, are but a few of the persons who hold positions at Court. The representatives of the arts and crafts are the heads of bodies closely resembling the Guilds of London. For instance, there exists at the Mushenge the weavers, cordwainers, and fishmongers; carvers, builders, and hunters are also represented, although the Bushongo are by no means famous for their skill in the chase. It is noteworthy that certain positions at Court are held always by slaves. Slaves are, as a rule, well treated by the Bushongo, but are considered very much lower in the social scale than their aristocratic masters. We were kept very hard at work gleaning information about the matters to which I have briefly alluded in the foregoing pages and in collecting legends and other items of interest to scientists, but our life, although full of interest, was rendered very trying by a foolish mistake about the forwarding of our stores. As I have said, we arrived at the Mushenge with practically nothing in the way of European comestibles, relying upon receiving a depot of “chop-boxes,” as one’s cases of provisions are termed in the Congo, which should have been waiting for us at Luebo, but the days grew into weeks and the weeks into months before they reached us, having been left at Dima by mistake. The Kasai Company’s agent very kindly sent us such things as he could spare, but he himself was living on very short commons, pending the arrival of his own stores, and the missionaries departed very soon after our coming to form a new station near the Kasai Company’s new hospital at the mouth of the Lubue River, we were therefore obliged to exist almost entirely upon native fare.

“Palm oil chop,” a dish consisting of cassava dough and a chicken cooked in palm oil flavoured with red pepper, is by no means a bad breakfast dish taken occasionally, but to live on the stuff is to learn to dislike it. In addition to this, poultry is very difficult to obtain in the Mushenge, so that we had quite frequently to partake of a meal of the manioc dough without the chicken, washed down with water, for we soon came to an end of our tea and coffee, and we carried no wines with us. It appears that during the rising of 1904, when the Bushongo deserted their villages, the chickens died in great numbers, and very few have since been reared, accordingly the fowls one can sometimes obtain are very expensive and very skinny. Although we tried to make the best of things, and to keep up appearances by dining off manioc dough at a table faultlessly appointed (I defy any one who is not in the best of health to attack such a meal if it is badly served up), the starvation soon began to tell upon us. When we left the forest we were feeling the strain of our journey in its terrible climate, and we really needed “feeding up,” so that we were more affected by the lack of supplies than we should have been earlier in our stay in Africa. Torday suffered more than I did; I escaped with neuralgia and loss of strength; but one night Torday was taken very seriously ill, his heart had begun to feel the strain. With nothing whatever in the way of comforts at hand, I think he is remarkably fortunate to have survived the attack; for a night and a day I feared that he might succumb. I suppose that his will power had a good deal to do with his recovery, which was certainly not due to the nourishment that could be found for him. Our clothes, too, had practically come to an end, for we had intended only to spend six months in the basin of the Sankuru, but our visit had extended to over a year, and what with wear and tear, and having to part with garments in exchange for curios, our wardrobes were reduced to very scanty proportions. I had no boots. The ones I brought up country with me, cracked by constant wettings, followed by exposure to the scorching sun, were quite worn out, I was therefore obliged to wear an old pair of canvas shoes, the rubber soles of which quickly wore into holes, letting my feet through on to the ground. It is remarkable how one unconsciously avoids treading upon things that will hurt one when walking in the rough grass of the plains or in the woodlands; although I marched a good deal when wearing these old shoes, for I used to go out every day in a usually unsuccessful search for guinea-fowls, and I made a journey of over a fortnight’s duration to the north-west of the Mushenge, I do not remember once seriously cutting my feet.

We were unlucky in being at the Mushenge when our stores were delayed, for the local tobacco is scarcely smokable, and we are both of us inveterate smokers. In many places the natives grow tobacco which, dried in the native manner, is really not bad, but the Bushongo cook a green leaf over a fire and tear it up and put it in their pipes; this was the only tobacco we could get to smoke, and as it crumbles when dried into a fine powder, it is almost useless in a pipe, and even when carefully rolled in fragments of the weekly edition of the _Times_, it makes a truly disgusting cigarette. The Bushongo themselves, however, appear to thoroughly enjoy it. Concerning the introduction of smoking among them, the Bushongo have a curious legend. Many years ago one of them returned from a long journey, and he was describing to his compatriots the many strange sights that he had seen, when he produced a pipe and some tobacco and commenced to smoke. His companions were astounded—“Look at the man,” they cried, “he is drinking smoke!” The traveller then explained to them wherein the charm of smoking lay, and induced them to try it. When they said that they found it agreeable, he said, “When you have a quarrel with your brother, in your fury you may wish to slay him; sit down and smoke a pipe. When the pipe is finished you will think that perhaps death is too great a punishment for your brother’s offences, and you will decide to let him off with a thrashing. Relight your pipe and smoke on. As the smoke curls upward you will come to the conclusion that a few hard words might take the place of blows. Light up your pipe once more, and when it is smoked through, you will go to your brother and ask him to forget the past.” Living in their very midst, we soon became friendly with all the natives of the Mushenge. For the first week or so of our stay the King used to call upon us and receive our visits, attended by a number of his courtiers, but as he became better acquainted with us, he would visit us unattended, or accompanied only by one or two intimate friends, and would often sit with us until far into the night discussing his kingdom or listening eagerly to everything we told him about Europe. We were astonished to find the ruler of so conservative a people as the Bushongo so progressive in his ideas.

He bitterly regretted the departure of the Roman Catholic missionaries from his village. The priests had received orders to abandon their mission near the Mushenge, and to found a new station at Pangu, near the spot where the waters of the Lubue flow into the Kasai, in order that their medical knowledge might be turned to account in assisting to nurse the sick who would be sent there to a new hospital which the Kasai Company was building. No doubt their work at Pangu has been most useful, and very likely several Europeans by this time owe their lives to their care, but I cannot help thinking that it is a thousand pities that they ever left the Mushenge. One of the two priests was a man who had spent a dozen years in Africa, and who was a great favourite with the Nyimi; with his experience, and the goodwill of the king, his work among the Bushongo might have been wonderful. It may seem strange to say so, but I do not think a missionary could wish for a better field than that offered by the ultra-conservative Bushongo, so long as the missionary knows their history and their religion thoroughly before he attempts to introduce his own faith among them. It is not my purpose here to describe in detail the religious beliefs of the Bushongo—Torday has dealt at length with them elsewhere; but when I say that they contain one God, the creator, and a set of moral laws of an extraordinarily high character, which take the place among the Bushongo occupied in Christendom by the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, my readers may begin to think that there is quite a possibility that by tactful management a missionary might be able to convert the legends and precepts of the Bushongo into those of Christianity. But such a work requires a thorough knowledge of the local beliefs, a keen insight into the native character, and great tact combined with patience. I have never been a missionary, and therefore cannot pretend to be able to teach others how to carry on their most difficult work, but I do venture to think that more could be accomplished by becoming intimate with the Nyimi and very gradually bringing to his notice, and to the notice of his elders, points of similarity between the Christian religion and the Bushongo belief, and thus slowly letting the natives regard the former as an amplification of the latter, than by inducing a number of children, too young to have yet learned anything of their tribal religion, to attend Christian services in a mission chapel. The Nyimi is most anxious that all the children of his tribe should learn to read and write, and also that his people should learn such useful crafts as carpentering, &c. For this reason he is anxious that the mission should be re-established near the Mushenge, and the man upon whom the task of re-establishing it devolves will find that the king is predisposed in his favour. When once he has succeeded, by tact and by the example of a strictly fair and honourable life, in winning the affection of the elders and the people, then, I think, he may reasonably hope to be able to slowly introduce his real mission, and to attempt the conversion of the king. But let the missionary understand the native religion as thoroughly as he possibly can before he tries to supplant it with his own, and I am sure that he will find many of the Bushongo beliefs helpful rather than otherwise in his work. If it is the duty of the traveller who, like Torday, goes out to Africa in the interests of ethnographical science to learn what he can of native religions, surely it is the duty of the missionaries to turn the information thus gained to good account.

There is an American Presbyterian Mission at Ibanshe, a few days’ journey to the south of the Mushenge, and another at Luebo; the mission at the capital itself was Roman Catholic; Bushongo children have attended both. It seems to me that the very greatest care must be necessary to avoid the work done by these two branches of the Christian religion injuring one another’s utility. The native children notice difference in their teaching. I know that from remarks made to me by lads who had received instruction at both, and the youthful Bushongo would very likely not be at all averse to discovering what might appear to them contradictory ideas in their doctrines; this would act as a severe check upon the progress of Christianity in the country. I think that not only might the missionary turn to account the intelligence of the Nyimi, but I believe that a resident advisor could easily guide the king into the path of a very enlightened ruler. I have shown that he is progressive in his ideas, and that his tribal laws are far in advance of any one would expect to in an African tribe; I can also say that in character Kwete is remarkably just. We came across several instances of the fairness with which he presides over trials of his subjects, one of which I may quote here. We were sitting one evening endeavouring to make ourselves believe that we were enjoying a remarkably scanty meal of cassava dough and one skinny chicken about as big as an English wood-pigeon, when we were startled by the shrieks of a woman arising from a hut close at hand. We hurried to the spot, and discovered that a man had been practising the brutal habit (very common in Africa) of putting red pepper into his wife’s eyes because she had in some way annoyed him; the pain produced by this diabolical punishment must be terrible. Naturally we were infuriated, and found it very hard to resist the temptation to give the barbarous husband the thrashing he so thoroughly deserved. Instead of touching the man, however, we decided to take him before his chief. Torday remained to prevent him escaping while I went round to see the Nyimi. I found him at his dwelling, and informing him of what had occurred, I requested him to at once put the scoundrel in chains and keep him there for a good long time. “I will have him put in the guard-room by the gates of my courtyard,” replied the chief, “but I cannot put him in chains until I have heard his case in the morning.” In my anger I had asked him to condemn a man unheard, and I had been rightly snubbed for it. Next day the man was brought up before the king and a number of the elders, Torday appearing as counsel for the prosecution, and was sentenced to three weeks in chains. “In chains” simply meant the ignominy of having to sleep in the guard-room, and to walk about in the daytime with a rope tied loosely round his neck, so the culprit got off rather more easily than he deserved; but one must remember that an act of cruelty such as he had committed is not looked upon with so much horror by natives as by ourselves, and to judge by the number of women who came to Torday after this incident to beg for a supply of boracic acid wherewith to bathe their own eyes when their husbands administered red pepper to them, such acts must be far from uncommon. A resident advisor could do more to stamp out such practices as this and the trial by poison ordeal by setting the Nyimi against them, than can be effected by any number of decrees forbidding such things issued from Boma or Brussels. Such an official might, I think, do a lot towards restoring and remodelling according to modern ideas the greatness of the Bushongo nation, which is but a shadow of what it was, say, a hundred years ago. The predecessors of Kwete upon the Bushongo throne were by no means all so enlightened as the great Shamba, or as Kwete himself; numerous cruel tyrants ruled the tribe, men who, in fits of savage passion at some delay in the payment of tribute, have massacred hundreds of their subjects, and who did much to shake the allegiance of many of the remoter districts to the chief.

Now that the white man can prevent the Nyimi from taking summary vengeance on his subjects, even if he desired to do so, some of the sub-tribes of the Bushongo, mindful of the deeds of former days, are by no means so loyal as are the inhabitants of the Mushenge. During our stay at the capital some of the Bangendi, a portion of the tribe living near the Lubudi River, rose against their king. The Nyimi himself set out for the scene of the disturbance, accompanied by a number of his troops (Baluba and Batetela slaves for the most part), who were many of them armed with old muzzle-loading guns. During his absence messengers were constantly arriving at the Mushenge from the scene of the disorder, and reports of severe fighting were quickly circulated. “So-and-so has killed three of the Bangendi with his own hand”—“The king has sent for every man to join him, as the Bangendi are too strong for his force”; such rumours kept the village in a great state of excitement. At last a wounded man was carried home, and we were requested to give him what medical attendance we could. The man had been shot by a gun in the stomach, and after a day or two he succumbed to his injuries, for which we could do little or nothing except endeavour to keep his strength up by administering to him the last remaining item of our European provisions—namely, a bottle of Bovril. When the Nyimi and his men returned we found out that the whole affair had really been remarkably tame. The man who had died was the only one of the king’s followers to be wounded, and the Government troops had appeared upon the scene before serious hostilities could commence; on their arrival the Bangendi had dispersed. I do not know if the insurgents had sustained any losses, but if they did, they could only have been very slight. This affair, insignificant in itself, serves to show that the unity of the Bushongo is not so firm as it was, and with its unity the race has lost much of its former greatness.

[Illustration: CHILDREN AT THE MUSHENGE IMITATING A BEARDED EUROPEAN.]

[Illustration: THE NYIMI’S SONS PLAYING WITH OUR FIREARMS.]

We became friendly not only with the Nyimi and the great dignitaries of his Court, but with all classes of natives during our stay at the Mushenge, and particularly with the children; two or three of the king’s little sons, all under seven years of age, and some of their playmates became our constant companions. When we got up in the mornings we would find the children waiting outside the tents eager to be allowed to perform some service for us, such as holding a mirror while we shaved. All day long they would sit beside us in the shed in which we worked, or accompany us upon our rambles round the village, and at meal-times they dearly loved to take the place of a “boy” and hand us our food. We used to spend most of our spare time playing with these youngsters, and I remember once, just after the death of the herald alluded to above, I returned from a search after guinea-fowl to find the children playing the parts of dignitaries at a funeral ceremony, in which Torday, reclining in his deck-chair, was acting as the corpse! The children were very good as a rule, and remarkably fair in all their games and disputes. Two of them, by name Mikope and Mingi Bengela, who were bosom friends really, would fight just after we had partaken of our midday meal. These conflicts were often most amusing, the blows delivered (which, by the way, never landed upon the person of the adversary) were so terrific that their impetus frequently caused the champion who dealt them to sprawl upon the ground, and tears of rage would spring into the hero’s eyes as, time after time, they beat the air. But should another child attempt to do anything so unfair as to touch either combatant during the fray both Mikope and Mingi Bengela, forgetting their own differences, would turn upon the intruder and belabour him as hard as they could. As soon as one of these fights was over (that is to say, when the combatants were weary or when anything else more exciting attracted their attention) it was forgotten, and the two gladiators became as friendly as before their dispute. During the time that food was very scarce I undertook a trip to the north-west of the Mushenge, towards the confluence of the Kasai and Sankuru, in the hope of being able to shoot some game and send the meat back to Torday, for at this time several European travellers were expected at the capital, including a Belgian journalist, a military officer, and Colonel Chaltin, famous in the Arab wars, who had recently become director of the Kasai Company. I stayed in several small villages in a thickly-wooded country, where I tried to obtain an elephant. The natives told me that the forest on the left bank of the Sankuru is rapidly spreading southwards towards the Mushenge, and I was shown several places now clothed thickly with young woods which had been open country in the memory even of natives of about twenty-five years of age. Elephants are fairly numerous in this country, but I was never able to obtain one. They pass their time in the low-lying part of the woodlands, which is mostly submerged and in which the undergrowth is so dense as to render a very near approach necessary before even so large a beast as an elephant can be seen, and when one is continually slipping about on roots concealed from view by the water one can scarcely hope to get very near to a beast without attracting his attention. Upon the only occasion when I did really believe that I should succeed in bagging an elephant the native that accompanied me got such a bad attack of nerves that he bolted, making off in one direction while the elephant retired hurriedly in another, and leaving me to follow him as best I could through a forest swamp with darkness rapidly coming on. I had no choice but to follow the man, for the whole country was under water, often as deep as one’s waist, and I knew that I should have very little chance of getting out of the woods at all if I allowed my companion to get out of sight or earshot. After several unsuccessful attempts to get an elephant I realised that I was wasting time and sending Torday nothing to eat, so I turned my attention to some buffalo which I heard were to be found in a clearing near a tiny village called Ikwembe. Ikwembe was a miserable place, consisting of only about ten extremely dilapidated huts, and the natives, who had probably never received a white man to stay in their village before, did not seem particularly pleased to see me. They were not in the least hostile, of course, for they knew that I travelled under the protection of the king, but I received a very poor welcome. Upon my explaining that I wished to shoot a buffalo, the chief, a very old man with a deformed leg, in which the knee would seem to have been dislocated in early youth and never put into place again, with the result that the limb had not grown properly, informed me that a herd of these animals habitually fed close to the village, and that his people would show me where to search for them. Just as the sun was nearing the horizon, and I was endeavouring to secure a guinea-fowl for my supper, a native came hurrying to call me, having seen five buffalo in the clearing. When I returned, bringing with me the head of one of the beasts, I began to be regarded as a welcome guest, for the Bushongo are not keen enough hunters to often succeed in killing buffaloes themselves. At dawn I sent off my six men (all the porters I had, for I was travelling with practically no baggage) to carry the meat to the Mushenge, of course presenting the inhabitants of Ikwembe with their share, and in the evening I again found the buffaloes and bagged another. On my return to Ikwembe the old chief formally requested me never to leave his village! After a few days, however, in the course of which I added nothing but a duiker to my bag, my popularity began to wane. Unfortunately much of the meat that I sent back to Torday was bad before it reached him, for I had had to wander some distance from the capital to find any game at all. The buffaloes I shot at Ikwembe appear to be “Congo buffaloes,” the _bos caffer nanus_ of naturalists, and I should think they were larger than the animals whose tracks I had seen in the great forest. The bulls are rather darker in colour than the mounted specimen of a “Congo buffalo” from Nigeria in the Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road. Of other game there are very few species, bush-buck and duiker representing the antelope family here as in most of the districts we visited, while the ubiquitous red pig is to be found in the forests. On the whole my shooting trip, though very enjoyable and affording me an opportunity of seeing something of the country and the Bushongo other than the courtiers of the king, was not very profitable as regards the amount of meat sent back to the Mushenge.

In the course of his investigations into the history of the Bushongo, Torday elicited some information which enabled him to form a theory as to the origin of the Bashilele, a people whom I have mentioned in an earlier chapter as attacking the official in charge of Basongo, near the confluence of the Kasai and the Sankuru. From what the Nyimi told him he came to the conclusion that these people and their western neighbours, hitherto known to us as the Tukongo, must be really a branch of the Bushongo stock. Before leaving Europe Torday had conceived a great desire to visit the hitherto unexplored country between Kasai and its tributary the Loange where dwell these two tribes, and now it seemed to him that, in order to complete his study of the Bushongo, it was imperative that we should make a determined effort to get into touch with the peoples whom he believed to be their kinsmen. We learned that the word “Tukongo,” which figures on many maps, is really a misnomer, like the word “Bakuba,” and that the natives of the Loange region call themselves Bakongo, by which name in future I shall refer to them. They are not, however, to be confused with the other Bakongo who inhabit the lower Congo near the coast, with whom they are in no way connected.

[Illustration: MIKOPE AND MINGI BENGELA.]

[Illustration: A BUSHONGO VILLAGE NEAR THE MUSHENGE.]

The Bashilele and Bakongo bore a bad reputation. They had burnt a factory belonging to the Kasai Company on the banks of the Upper Kasai; they had repulsed with considerable losses two military expeditions directed across their country from the East; and in the North they continually snipe at the soldiers and porters whenever the white officer commanding at Basongo endeavours to penetrate inland from the river bank. This much is true: the Bashilele and Bakongo must plead guilty to this; but with these facts to go upon imaginative persons had endowed the tribes with a truly terrible reputation. They were cannibals of the most debased type, treacherous and warlike; their country consisted of dense forest, in which even a strong escort would be at the mercy of the natives. All the white men to whom we had mentioned our desire to visit the country between the Loange and the Kasai had been fully convinced that if we once succeeded in entering the unknown tract we should never be seen again; but the king of the Bushongo, whose opinion we regarded as of more value than those of Europeans, considered it quite possible that if once we could establish friendly relations with outlying villages of either the Bakongo or Bashilele tribes, we might reasonably hope to be able to cross their territory. Torday therefore decided to proceed to the Kwilu River, where he had previously carried on a great deal of research work among the natives, and to attempt to march overland from the Kwilu River to the Upper Kasai, thereby connecting the work he had done on the Kwilu with that which he had now accomplished in the region of the Sankuru. It was, therefore, with this somewhat ambitious plan in our mind that we left the Mushenge at Christmas 1908, after nearly four months of interesting work at the court of the Nyimi, and returning to the Sankuru at Bolombo, descended the river by steamer to the Kasai Company’s headquarters at Dima.