My little Baluba boy, Sam, had now become the major-domo of our servants, and since the departure of Jones he had been the only native regularly in our employ with the exception of our cook. Our cook, Luchima, who had served us faithfully and well during the whole of our journey up to this time, was taken so ill at Kikwit that it became apparent that he would be quite unfit for the hard work of marching by day and attending to his other duties in the evenings for many months to come. We therefore determined that he should return by steamer to Dima, and thence be conveyed to his home at Batempa, and arranged for another cook to be sent on to us from Dima, where there are always large numbers of servants of all kinds waiting to obtain employment. This man, Mabruki, was really an Akela, but in his early youth he had been sold as a slave to the Batetela, and to all intents and purposes belonged to this latter tribe. He was by no means an ideal cook, and, unfortunately, his health broke down just when we most needed every man that we could obtain. Torday engaged as “boy” a very small member of the Bayanzi tribe, who could not have been more than eight years old at the most. This child, Buya, was to learn his duties from Sam, and he displayed an enthusiasm for his work and an intelligence which showed that in time he would become a most valuable servant; but at the time when he entered our employ he was absolutely ignorant of the white man and his ways, and thereby caused us sometimes no little amusement. He used to linger much longer than was necessary in Torday’s tent every morning when making the bed, and we discovered he used to spend many happy minutes in admiring his countenance in Torday’s shaving-glass, an object the like of which he had never seen before. I remember, too, that he was always getting lost during our stay in Kikwit, for frequently when we sent him upon an errand he would find something going on in the factory which amused or interested him, and he would forget to come back after delivering his message. All the same he was extremely useful and absolutely honest, the only thing that we ever found him to steal being the dog’s dinner; for although he had plenty to eat himself, being a Bayanzi, and therefore gluttonous, he could not resist the temptation to purloin a piece of meat. We also engaged another youth of about twelve years of age, named Benga. This lad was rather a useless person, but he used to amuse us by his frequent disputes with Buya. The Bayanzi tribe are cannibals; the Bapende, to which Benga belonged, are not; and we once overheard the following conversation on the subject of cannibalism. “You Bapende,” scornfully remarked Buya, “you kill dogs to eat them.” “Well,” replied Benga, “you Bayanzi can’t talk; you eat men.” This remark caused an outburst of indignation on the part of the little cannibal. “It is all very well to eat your enemies when you have killed them in battle—is not that quite a natural thing to do?—but no decent person would think of eating his friend. You Bapende think nothing of eating dogs, the greatest friend of man.” Buya, I am afraid, was so disgusted at the idea of eating dogs, that he flavoured his remarks about the Bapende tribe with a good many expressions such as a European lad of his age might well be expected not to know the use of. We engaged four of the southern Bambala from the neighbourhood of Kikwit to accompany us as body-servants to carry our guns when out shooting, and our cameras, water-bottles, &c. when on the march. Torday had the greatest difficulty in preventing large numbers of these people from joining our expedition, for, as I have said, whole villages of them desired to go with us to the Kasai, so that when we left Kikwit we had to start some few days earlier than the date upon which we had told the local natives we should commence our journey. The four men whom we took with us were extremely useful followers during the months they were in our employ, and as I shall have occasion frequently to refer to them, I must give their names. Mayuyu, a fine tall young man of about twenty-two years old, habitually carried Torday’s gun. This man was perhaps the most intelligent of our servants, and, as my narrative will show, his popularity with the people in whose country we passed through contributed largely to the success of our journey. Mokenye, my own gun-bearer, though not so tall as Mayuyu, was a splendid specimen of a man. Very powerfully built and possessed of great endurance, he never seemed to feel fatigue, and his obliging and cheerful disposition made him one of our most valuable servants. The other two were named Molele and Moame. From among the northern Bambala of Luana we selected eighteen men, all of whom Torday had previously known. These eighteen we hoped would be just sufficient to carry the absolute necessities of life and some of the objects we were going to collect for the Museum in case we should be obliged to retreat hurriedly from the unknown country of the Bakongo and Bashilele. We appointed one of these men, by name Kimbangala, to act as headman or capita. The factory of Kikwit made an excellent starting-point for a journey eastwards towards the Kasai. A steamer comes up the Kwilu every ten days from Dima, and deposits at Kikwit the stores and merchandise required for several other factories within a radius of about five or six days’ journey. Between the Kwilu and the Loange rivers are situated three factories belonging to the Kasai Company: Athenes (or Alela, as it is called by the natives) lies in the country of the Babunda tribe, near to the upper waters of the Kancha River; Dumba and Bienge are factories situated upon the Lubue. Caravans are frequently sent from Kikwit to each of these three factories. Our plan was to proceed to Alela, where Torday could carry on the study of the Babunda people, commenced years ago by his compatriot, the Hungarian Ladislaus Magyar, and from thence we intended to proceed to Dumba, where we should find the stores sent on from Dima, and where we hoped to obtain some information concerning the Bakongo people which would enable us to definitely fix upon some plan for crossing the Loange and entering their territory. Both at Alela and at Dumba we could keep in touch with the outside world by sending messengers to Kikwit. Before leaving the Kwilu we gave an exhibition to a large number of Bambala of one of the clockwork elephants which we had recently received from London. Torday had ordered these toys partly in the hope that some chief would covet them so much as to exchange curios for them which otherwise we should not be able to obtain, and partly because he thought it quite likely that the natives, who, of course, had never seen an automatic toy before, might attribute magical powers to the elephants, which they would most probably regard as the charm or fetish which watched over and protected us. The reception which the elephant met with at Kikwit certainly showed us that we had done well to have it sent out. The people were simply amazed at it. As the little toy, only some eight inches in height, having secretly been wound up in the seclusion of the tent, walked along the smooth top of a provision-box waving its trunk, the natives shrank away from it, holding their hands over their mouths and gasping with astonishment. Immediately after seeing it several people desired to purchase it, but there was not one man in the crowd who could be induced to touch it. Evidently the Bambala believed that it was the most potent fetish they had ever seen. We did not display the elephant to every one who came to see us in the hope of getting a glimpse of it, for we were afraid that the awe which it inspired might be lessened if we allowed it to become too common a spectacle. We therefore showed it only upon one or two occasions, and made a great favour of letting it walk at all. We were now confident that we had a powerful ally in the elephant, which might very likely prove more useful in the event of trouble with the natives than the ten military rifles which had not been unpacked during the earlier part of our journey, and which we now left at Kikwit to be forwarded to us at Dumba should we send for them.

When we crossed the Kwilu and started off towards Alela our way lay for some miles in a southerly direction almost parallel to the river, and accordingly we marched for a considerable distance through the forest which borders the stream, but which is really only about ten miles in width opposite to Kikwit, and gives place to a very hilly grass country, plentifully studded with trees. We passed through several villages occupied by Bambala, in one or two of which we exhibited the “elephant,” always producing the greatest astonishment among the natives; but the territory of the Babunda begins at no great distance from the Kwilu, and after two very easy stages we arrived in their country. There we found villages very different from any that we had yet visited. Instead of building their huts in a group, the Babunda live in the midst of their plantations, and accordingly the villages cover a great many acres of ground, some even extending to a couple of miles in length. They are usually situated in a valley, and seen from a distance nestling at the foot of grassy slopes, which are here quite devoid of trees, they almost remind one of a village of the Sussex Downs. The huts themselves, dotted about with their fowl-houses and granaries in the millet fields, are square, and they have their doors so high above the ground that a little platform is built outside the entrance, by means of which the occupants can climb into the hut, and upon which the people sit and smoke their pipes in the evenings. The Babunda have enormous plantations, so that food is easily and cheaply obtainable in the country. We were welcomed cordially in every village, crowds of people meeting us on the road and accompanying us to our camping ground, singing in low and quite musical voices, for, like the neighbouring Bambala, the Babunda sing very well indeed. On our way we passed through two villages, between which a state of war existed, and we spent a night in one of them. One might have expected that one would find excitement raging in these villages, and to find some evidence of recent fighting. As a matter of fact, we noticed very little out of the common taking place in either village; all the men carried bows, but that is usual with the Babunda, so that it need not indicate that any hostilities were contemplated. When we arrived at the second of the two villages the chief welcomed us and conducted us to a shed beneath which we could rest, and then asked us to excuse him from entertaining us, as he was extremely busy making arrangements for a war! The last thing that he appeared to be preparing for was a breach of the peace. He seemed to be going round collecting quantities of the salt, neatly wrapped up in banana leaves, which is used so largely as currency in this district, and handing them over to a woman. We discovered, upon questioning the natives, that a man of this place had been killed in quarrel by a native from the neighbouring village through which we had passed. As is usual in such cases, no immediate attempt at reprisals had been made, but the chief of the murdered man’s village had demanded the payment of a heavy indemnity for the slaying of his subject, threatening, in case the damage should not be forthcoming, to declare war. The sum demanded had not been paid, and accordingly the chief in whose village we were staying was obliged himself to pay damages to the relatives of the murdered man, and had told his warriors to hold themselves in readiness to commence hostilities with the offending village. At the time of our arrival the dead man had not been buried, and a number of women were singing a funeral dirge around the hut in which the body was laid. During the evening and the night which followed we observed no posting of sentries or any other similar indication that a state of war existed, and we subsequently learned that the affair had been settled by the ultimate payment of the indemnity by the village of the murderer. Little inter-village disputes such as these are of frequent occurrence, but they rarely lead to serious fighting, and any casual traveller passing through the belligerent villages might usually fail to notice that anything extraordinary was going on. White men or their servants are, as a rule, allowed to travel through districts where a state of war exists without any molestation whatever, for the natives are quite content to keep their differences to themselves, and strictly respect the neutrality of the white man. Some days after we had passed through this district, a new European agent of the Kasai Company followed in our footsteps to commence his work at Alela. This young man had not been long enough in Africa to learn anything of a native language, and when his boy attempted to explain to him that there was trouble between the two villages which I have mentioned, he failed to understand what he was told. The boy thereupon resorted to signs, and, taking a bow, he tried to explain to the white man that fighting was likely to take place; the young man, however, imagined from his gesticulations that some attack might be contemplated upon himself and his caravan. He therefore passed an anxious and, I believe, a sleepless night, and fully believed when we met him some days later that he had had a very fortunate escape from a dangerous situation.

We arrived at Alela, which lies about seventy miles to the south-south-east of Kikwit, upon the fifth day after crossing the Kwilu. The country around the village is entirely devoid of trees, except for a number of palms in the Babunda villages, and consists of a plateau between the hilly country which we passed through after crossing the Kwilu, and the even more hilly district to the eastwards through which the river Lubue flows. In this part of the world there is practically no game whatsoever; the elephants which are to be found near the Kwilu do not forsake the woodlands which surround that river; buffaloes do not exist between the Loange and the Kwilu, and antelopes, even the almost ubiquitous duiker, are very rarely seen. The country therefore around Alela is by no means a sportsman’s paradise. The Kasai Company’s factory, Athenes, is situated only two or three hundred yards from the Babunda village of Alela, and, the European agent having allowed us the use of an empty building in which we could develop photographs, &c., we pitched our camp in the factory, going over daily to the native village to carry on our work among the people. The Babunda are a fine stalwart race of men; they are the blackest of any of the negroes with whom we have come in contact, and they do not cover their persons with any kind of dye. The most remarkable thing about their appearance is the quantity of hair which the men possess (the women cut their hair short), and the great variety of ways in which they dress it. Sometimes it hangs in a great plaited mass down the back of their necks, at others it is arranged in tufts running backwards from the forehead suggestive of the comb of a cock, but always it is dressed and oiled with the greatest care; many of the young Babunda dandies make caps of palm cloth to fit their head-dress in order that their hair may not become ruffled by the wind. Although we were very well received by the Babunda, we found them extremely reticent upon all matters connected with their tribal customs or beliefs, and they were by no means so anxious to sell us objects for the Museum as we could wish. Many of them offered to sell us rubber, and one man remarked that if we would not buy rubber we were no friends of the people. The rubber trade is carried on in this district in rather a peculiar manner. In most other places the native, when he requires any of the commodities that the white man sells, collects some rubber and takes it to a factory; but among the Babunda, however, and their neighbours the Bapindji, rubber is used as a currency, and a weekly market is held out in the open plains to the west of Alela, where the natives exchange rubber for other goods or food-stuffs among themselves. The rubber therefore is not, as a rule, brought to the white man by the native who has collected it, and the greatest care is taken by the people that the European should not be allowed to attend one of these markets and so ascertain the price at which it there changes hands. It would be extremely dangerous for a white man to attempt to intrude at one of these gatherings, for the Babunda are a warlike race, and they would be very likely to attack the trader if they thought he was spying upon them in order to find out how cheaply they sold the rubber among themselves. During a journey of a week’s duration which we made to the west of Alela, we passed by one of these markets. The crowds of people were scattered about in little groups over an extensive area of the plain, but when we attempted to approach them we were peremptorily told that we were not wanted. We were anxious, of course, to avoid any dispute with the Babunda, with whom we were endeavouring to become friendly, and we accordingly passed on without appearing to take any notice of the market. We subsequently learned that fighting between the members of the various villages is by no means rare at these gatherings.

During our week’s journey to the west we visited a number of Babunda villages, one of which, a very large one, had been the scene some few years before of some trouble between the natives and a European. Owing to some misunderstanding, which arose, I believe, from the fact that the white man was accompanied by a large number of followers, the people of this village, Mokulu, were under the impression that the traveller intended to attack them, and accordingly they had commenced hostilities by attacking him. The white man, although he had a number of rifles with him, had to give way before the warlike Babunda; and although, I believe, there were few, if any, casualties on either side, the Babunda were certainly under the impression that they gained a glorious victory. The chief, Mokulu, therefore possesses a very high idea of his own importance and military strength. We visited this man in the hope that he would use his influence, which was undoubtedly great, to induce the natives to sell us a number of objects for the British Museum. When we arrived in the village he welcomed us cordially, but very quickly broached the subject of an exchange of presents, mentioning the fact that he was a very important personage, and that he hoped we would remember this in selecting the present we should give him in exchange for the goat and chickens which he offered us. We gave him a pretty substantial present, and then began to discuss the purchase of curios. Mokulu assured us that there were many of the objects we required, such as carved wooden cups, embroidered cloth, weapons, &c., in the village, and that if we would give him a further present he would certainly be able to secure us a great many of them. We therefore promised him a present, and he departed into the village ostensibly with the purpose of requesting his subjects to deal with us. Shortly afterwards he returned, but no one brought us any curios for sale, and upon our inquiring if he had been unable to find any, he simply laughed and said, “O yes; the objects are coming now,” and left us. After this had happened three or four times he asked us to give him a present in advance, and having received it he again returned to the village, but came back empty-handed. Whenever we mentioned the subject of curios to him, he simply laughed and looked at us with a twinkle in his eye, and not one object could we buy in his village. The fact is he had not the slightest intention of helping us in any way, and he had certainly swindled us of the goods we had given him. As a rule, of course, it is far wiser never to give a present to a chief until one is quite certain what one will get in exchange for it, but in this case we knew that if we did not treat Mokulu handsomely we should stand no chance whatever of obtaining anything from him. We therefore speculated, and lost; and I think that Mokulu was far more pleased at the knowledge that he had cheated us than he was with the goods we had given him.

After leaving Mokulu’s village we came once more to the banks of the Kwilu where dwell the Bapindji tribe, and stayed at a village called Bondo. The scenery here is remarkably fine; the Kwilu, which is at this point not more than one hundred yards wide, rushes swiftly through a cleft or ravine in the plateau about nine hundred feet in depth and a mile and a half to two miles at the summit. The surrounding country consists of grass land thickly studded with stunted trees, and only upon the very banks of the river is there any woodland. Here, however, there is a mass of luxuriant vegetation, and the stream rushes violently over a rocky bed beneath the shade of numbers of palm-trees. Just at Bondo the rocks practically put the course of the river into a series of rapids or falls, the roar of which can be heard at some miles’ distance in the calm of the tropical evening. We strolled down from the village to photograph some of these falls in the company of one or two native lads. When we reached the water’s edge these boys stepped into the river with, as we thought, the object of washing their feet. Suddenly one of them sprang into the stream with a cry, was caught by the rush of water, and swept downwards towards some rocks at a terrific pace. The whole thing happened in a moment, and we thought that the boy was drowned before either of us had time to do anything; but when he neared the rocks the current turned him towards the slack water near the banks, and with a few powerful strokes he swam out of the stream into the still waters, and thence calmly walked ashore. Seeing our look of astonishment at his safe return, the lad merely laughed and remarked that if one knew the currents one could always allow oneself to be swept downwards in the rapids with a certainty of regaining the still waters a little lower down, and he told us that the practice of this swimming feat was one of the pastimes of the boys of Bondo. To show us that he was not exaggerating he went through the performance two or three times, and I have never seen any feat which it appeared must so certainly end in destruction, and yet which, the native informed us, is in reality remarkably easy. Whether or not it is easy the Bapindji must be distinctly fine swimmers to attempt it. The chief of Bondo, which, by the way, is an extremely beautiful village with its picturesque grass huts and their little granaries suspended upon poles to keep the food-stuffs safe from the attacks of mice, was an old and very decrepit man with a remarkably suspicious nature. He was much impressed with the exhibition that we gave him of our fetish, the walking elephant, and in the evening he came privately to us and offered to buy it. He told us that owing to his infirmities he was unable to go about his village as much as he should wish, and he had no doubt that many things were said about him behind his back which he would like to overhear, and which would not be said if he were able to go about more among his subjects. If he possessed the elephant he could send it out in the evenings to walk around the village, where it could spy upon his people, and upon its return could report to him any plots against his authority which might be hatched. As we possessed two of these elephants, Torday thought it just possible there might at Bondo be some strange fetish or other object which we had not yet seen, and which we should like to secure for the British Museum. He therefore told the chief that he might possibly be induced to part with the elephant if anything that he specially desired was offered in exchange for it. The chief thereupon commenced to offer us all manner of objects, none of which were of sufficient interest to induce us to part with the toy, and finally he said he would give us quite a large quantity of ivory or one or two slaves in exchange for it. No doubt we should have been commercially the gainers had we accepted the offer of the tusks, but we had not come to Africa to trade in ivory, and we did not wish to compete with the Kasai Company in this matter; so we decided not to sell the elephant at Bondo, and it turned out lucky for us that we retained both the toys until we reached the unknown country. The Bapindji, who in appearance closely resemble the clay-covered Bambala, are, as a rule, a very peaceful people, but not long before our visit they had played a joke upon a trader who had, it appears, shown some nervousness in visiting them. They had crowded round him in the village, and had commenced to touch and examine his baggage, thinking that he was afraid of them because he did not object to their doing so. They quickly passed on from touching his clothing, and finally when the five armed men who accompanied him had thrown down their rifles and fled, the natives proceeded to remove his hat and pull his hair! After this they stole all his belongings and ordered him out of the village. Two or three days later they returned to him everything that they had stolen in perfect safety, for they had only purloined the goods to frighten him, and had doubtless thoroughly enjoyed what they regarded as an excellent joke. The natives of this part of Africa are rather partial to practical jokes, sometimes of rather a grim character. I have heard a story of a certain powerful chief, Yongo, threatening two white men, whose followers had deserted them, with instant death if they did not retire into a hut in his village and remain there as his prisoners. All day long this hut was closely guarded by armed warriors, but in the night when the travellers cautiously peered from the doorway they discovered that all the guards had been removed, leaving them free to escape, but that over the doorway was suspended a human ham, left there, doubtless, to give them one more unpleasant surprise before they made the escape which no one hindered them from attempting.

Upon our return to Alela after our trip in the Bapindji country, we had to wait for several days for the arrival of stores which we had left at Kikwit, and during this time we did all the work we could among the local Babunda, but owing to their extraordinary reticence, the results of Torday’s researches among them are meagre compared with those obtained among the Bushongo. Although almost every evening singing in the village told us that some ceremony was in progress, we could see very little of what was going on, and the only event of any particular interest which we witnessed was a funeral. The body, wrapped from head to foot in palm cloth, was laid out in a hut, around which the mourners were wailing and playing small rattles, the men covered with a red dye and the women with ashes. After some hours of weeping, in which a great number of persons took part, the corpse was carried out of the village and buried in the plains, where nothing but an old cooking-pot was left to mark the last resting-place of the dead. While waiting at Alela we were able to form some estimate of the skill which our followers possessed in the use of bows and arrows. We invited a few Babunda who happened to be passing to take part in a shooting contest, and the rivalry between the various tribes of which our caravan contained representatives and the local marksmen became extremely keen. We found that all our people, including little Buya, were remarkably good shots, and the rapidity with which they could loose off their arrows was extraordinary. We noticed that some of the Babunda shot in a kneeling position, and that our four southern Bambala possessed a curious method of defence, in which they used their bows as shields. Torday had previously noticed this custom, and, taking a blunt arrow, we put it to the test. My gun-bearer, Mokenye, gave us a demonstration of it. We threw the arrow at him, and, as it approached, with a sharp turn of the wrist he struck it aside with his bow, and so skilful was he in warding off the missile that only once did we succeed in getting an arrow through his guard. Of course this method of defence would be by no means certain against an arrow which, having been shot at a short range, was travelling at a great pace; but the Bambala assured us that they could really be sure of defending themselves from arrows which were moving less swiftly at the end of a long flight. The result of our shooting competition was that we learned we could depend upon our followers to at least hold their own with their national weapons should we have the misfortune to be attacked by the Bakongo or Bashilele. Alela, like the whole of the Kwilu region, is a comparatively healthy spot. In this district there are few mosquitos (upon the shores of the Kwilu there are practically none), and the tsetse fly appears to be so rare that we often wondered whether the great plains around Alela could not be turned into a pasturage for domestic cattle if the beasts could be brought into the country without bringing the fly with them. In the whole of the country we visited during our two years’ journey domestic cattle are not to be found, with the exception of a few head imported by the white man at Lusambo and Dima. Further to the south, however, near the Portuguese frontier, the natives breed a certain number of these animals, and also sheep. At the present moment the only domestic creatures which the natives keep in those parts of the Kasai which we visited are chickens and goats, although a few sheep, which have been imported from the south, are here and there to be found. Although, owing to the lack of shade, the sun at Alela can be very trying, there is often a cooling breeze sweeping over the plateau which serves to temper the fierce heat, and at the time we left Alela—that is to say, at the end of April 1909—rainstorms and tornadoes were of frequent occurrence, the rainy season having continued, so we were informed, rather later than usual.