The habits of the Bakongo at their clubs are certainly not so temperate as they might be, but we soon found that as a rule they were, when drunk, more agreeable and more anxious to please us than when sober, so that although for the first few days we were rather uncertain as to what their demeanour towards us might be when the liquor got into them, we soon came to regard the existence of these clubs as rather a help than a hindrance to our progress. At Kanenenke our men were often invited to partake of refreshment by the natives, and on one or two occasions we ourselves were offered a drink by some convivial spirit when we passed the clubs on our way back from shooting guinea-fowls in the evening. Although palm wine is generally drunk out of quaintly carved wooden cups, in the manufacture of which the Bakongo are quite the equal of the Bushongo, it is very often imbibed from leaves neatly twisted up so as to contain the liquid, the same leaf never being used for two drinks. The natives in most parts of the Kasai district are in the habit of thus drinking water from leaves when they cross a stream upon the march. During our stay at Kanenenke, although the fact that the little children displayed no timidity in visiting our camp and playing with us clearly showed that we were becoming even popular with the natives, our chances of reaching the Kasai began to appear remarkably small. It seemed that nothing save iron and knives would induce the Bakongo to carry for us, and our stock of these commodities was almost at an end. We possessed a fair amount of salt, which the natives would accept in payment for small services, and also a quantity of European cotton material, but this latter proved merely an encumbrance to us, for we learned that Goman Vula had issued a decree announcing that any one of his subjects found wearing material of European manufacture would be instantly put to death. We could hardly expect, therefore, that the Bakongo would carry for us for a wage to be paid in cloth.

In addition to this, the people of Kanenenke informed us that they and the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages had had a difference of opinion with Goman Vula, which, if it had not grown to an open revolt, had at least put a stop to any intercourse between the natives of the district in which we now were and the Bakongo who inhabited the immediate neighbourhood of Goman Vula’s village. The people of Kanenenke plainly told us that, for this reason, they could not themselves transport our baggage to the village of the great chief. This story may very likely have been a lie invented for the purpose of keeping us away from Goman Vula, for the natives were as mysterious as ever when discussing him, and we could not find any one who would say that he knew him personally; but, whether true or false, it seemed highly improbable that we should either be able to meet Goman Vula or to make our way towards the Kasai. We were bitterly disappointed, for we had gone to considerable expense in making our way as far as Kanenenke, and at Kanenenke itself we were getting on with the natives better than we had any right to expect that we should, so that Torday was collecting quite an amount of valuable information concerning the manners and customs of the tribe. In addition to this, we were particularly anxious to cross this unknown track, a feat which had been attempted unsuccessfully so often before. We were convinced that the whole matter was now merely a question of money. Had we possessed unlimited iron and knives we could doubtless have bribed the Bakongo to take us anywhere we liked, but such heavy material in large quantities would have necessitated our bringing with us a very large number of porters, for it would be quite impossible to trust the Bakongo themselves to transport loads consisting of the objects which they covet so much; and had we been followed by a large number of natives from the Kwilu, the Bakongo of the river bank would certainly have been so suspicious of us that they would never have ferried us over the Loange. Had it been possible to employ some other means of transport, such as, for instance, donkeys, I am convinced that we should have been able to bring in sufficient iron and knives to bribe the natives into taking us to Goman Vula’s village, and probably to succeed in establishing friendly relations with the great chief himself. Although our chances of being able to reach the Kasai certainly seemed very remote, we could not bear to turn back and recross the Loange, so that when the people of Kanenenke began to talk about carrying our loads on for one more stage, we decided to risk finding ourselves at an end of our supply of currency, and to proceed as far in an easterly direction as we possibly could. We made great friends with the chief of Kanenenke, a fine, stalwart old native, who was in the habit of smoking a pipe, the stem of which was so long that he required a slave to light it for him, and with his son Gandu, another fine specimen of a negro, with whom we used to take short shooting excursions in search of guinea-fowl. During these excursions we came across many of the hidden plantations of the Bakongo, for on the march in their country one sees little or no land under cultivation, the fields generally lying some distance from any main track, hidden in patches of woodland. The chief and his son were very greatly impressed by our clockwork elephant.

During our stay in the village Gandu’s wife presented him with a son, whereupon the young warrior at once came round to see us, and, calling Torday aside, asked him if he would allow our elephant to predict the future of the child. This Torday agreed to do, and, having previously ascertained by his researches among the people that Gandu’s son would be heir to the chieftainship, and seeing that the baby was a healthy one, he told the proud father that the elephant foresaw that the child would grow up into a strong man and become the chief of a village. This was a fairly safe prophecy, for if the child lived he would certainly become chief, and there appeared to be no prospect of its dying, at any rate for the next few days, after which we hoped we should be many miles away from Kanenenke. At any rate the prediction thoroughly delighted Gandu, and he offered himself to act as an envoy from us to the people of Kenge, the next village to the eastwards, if we would send with him one of our men, Mayuyu, with whom he had struck up a great friendship. Mayuyu at once expressed his willingness to go, so he and Gandu started off one morning to assure the people of Kenge of our peaceful intentions, and to ask them if they had any objection to our visiting them. During their absence we had little to do, for Gandu was our chief informant upon all matters connected with his tribe in which we were interested, so we spent a good deal of our time in playing with the children. While thus employed Torday one day showed the little ones how to blow an egg. This was regarded by all the assembled natives as a truly wonderful performance, so we threaded a piece of cotton through the empty shell and hung it up to a tree close to our tents, where it was evidently regarded as a fetish, and accordingly avoided by all passing natives. In an empty granary just beside the entrance to my tent a Bakongo fetish of a very different kind was hanging; it was a human thigh-bone; but although this was rather gruesome, and was no doubt believed to possess considerable magical powers, I think that our clockwork elephant and our eggshell were regarded as something far more uncanny than any charm which the natives themselves possessed, so that we felt quite safe in leaving our goods about in the shed, where we passed the greater part of our time, and in going to rest at night without troubling to post sentries over our belongings.

After a couple of days’ absence Gandu and Mayuyu returned and informed us that the people of Kenge had expressed their willingness to receive our visit, and, in fact, had appeared quite anxious to see us. Kenge, Gandu told us, lay at no great distance from Goman Vula’s village, so he thought that it was quite possible we might be able to persuade its inhabitants to take us on to see the great chief. Knowing the state of our finances as regards iron and knives, however, we ourselves were very doubtful upon this point. Early in the morning, after the return of our envoys, Torday proceeded to Kenge, all the inhabitants of Kanenenke and of one or two neighbouring hamlets turning out to carry our loads, but although every one appeared anxious to act as porters, we were unable to secure sufficient people to remove all our baggage from the village in one day. Accordingly I stayed behind with the remainder of the baggage to await the return of our Bambala, whom Torday promised to send back as soon as they were refreshed after their journey. The way to Kenge occupied about seven hours, so that I had to spend two nights at Kanenenke before our porters had had time to rest and to return for me. They brought with them a note from Torday informing me that he had been received in a friendly fashion by two chiefs who held equal sway at Kenge, and that these worthies had given him a present of fowls. He said that he had told the natives that our stock of iron was practically at an end, but that this fact did not appear to prejudice them against us. I was somewhat relieved to get this information, for the night before I left Kanenenke the Bakongo, who had returned from carrying our loads with Torday, had appeared much less friendly in their manner towards me; and I gathered from what I could pick up from the remarks I heard made at a mass meeting held after nightfall within the village that they were dissatisfied with their pay, evidently expecting to be able to extort from Torday quite twice the amount that had been agreed upon as their wages.

Just as I was leaving the village, the chief came to me and formally requested me to remove the eggshell which I had inadvertently left hanging upon its tree. The people evidently imagined that this charm could have some effect upon them even after our departure if left in their village. I therefore carefully removed it and started upon my journey. The way to Kenge lay, after passing through a narrow strip of woodland close to Kanenenke, over great rolling, grassy downs, almost devoid of trees, and it was only after covering about eighteen miles of a winding road that we came upon any woodland, and then only a narrow strip bordering a brook a mile or so from Kenge. At Kenge we were only about twenty miles as the crow flies from the Loange River, and the country had consisted almost entirely of undulating plains, although to the north of Kenge very extensive woodlands could be seen, and, of course, near to the Loange patches of forest are to be found in the numerous hollows, through which flow little streams. On the whole the country here must be said to consist of plains, and in no way resembles the impenetrable forest which we had been told we should find between the Loange and the Kasai. Upon reaching Kenge I found Torday installed under a shed about forty yards from the stockade which surrounded the village. His tent was pitched a few yards away, and mine was quickly erected close beside it. Between the shed and the village the ground had been cleared of grass, and was covered with cassava bushes about four or five feet in height. A few yards away from our tents lay the rough grass of the plains. Torday was talking to several natives, including the two chiefs, when I arrived, and all these came forward to welcome me. We noticed, however, that they looked in some surprise on the loads which our Bambala were carrying, which consisted merely of a few odd and ends. A short time after I had joined Torday and we were sitting down to a meal, one of the chiefs, an evil-looking ruffian with a squint, came to speak to us, and it was evident that his friendly attitude towards us had changed to one of insolence. He and his people had previously told Torday that they would not expect to be paid in iron for carrying us on to the next village, for they had been assured that our stock of iron and knives was nearly at an end, but now he came and informed us that his people would not carry our loads until they had received a high wage in iron; nothing else would satisfy them. Torday once more informed them that it was quite impossible for us to accede to these demands, whereupon the chief remarked, “Very well, you can go; if you have no iron, we do not want you here.” Torday then told him that we asked nothing better than to go, and that if his people would carry our loads for us at daybreak on the morrow, we should be delighted to leave his village and continue our journey towards the Kasai. The chief again assured us that his people would not carry without iron; and when we remarked that we could not move until they carried for us, he said, “You must go as best you can yourselves; we will have iron, or we will have war.” With that he left us.

We learned later on that this, the elder of the two chiefs, rather fancied himself as a wizard, and doubtless intended to show off his magical powers before his people by frightening us out of his village. After a time he returned and told us that as a declaration of war he intended to steal the chickens which he had just presented to us. We showed him where they lay, and he thereupon took them, our people, acting under our order, making no effort to prevent him, for we did not wish to force on hostilities by any act of violence on our part. For the rest of the evening no one came near us, and it was noticeable that the women and children kept within the stockade, while the warriors, who had previously been walking about unarmed, most of them now carried their bows and arrows when they passed our camp. Our position was by no means a comfortable one. I have mentioned that the shed in which our belongings lay and our tents were closely surrounded by cassava bushes, under cover of which it would be very easy for a native to creep up unobserved and shoot us as we sat in our chairs; obviously any attempt on our part to clear the ground by cutting down their crops could only result in the Bakongo immediately attacking us. Our camp was situated well within arrow-range of the stockade, and although the shed beneath which we were sitting would doubtless keep out any arrows shot from the village, which at a distance of forty yards would already be beginning to drop, we and our men would certainly be very much exposed at any time that we left its shelter. Any attempt at removing our camp to the plains, a little farther away from the village, would only have been mistaken for flight, and would have induced the Bakongo to attack us immediately. The only thing to do was to stay where we were, to avoid any act of aggression, and to appear as unconcerned as possible. We summoned our Bambala porters and now informed them for the first time that the two long cases which we carried with us contained ten rifles; for up to this moment we had kept our people in ignorance of the fact that we possessed any arms except our own sporting guns. Upon seeing the rifles, our trusty Bambala suggested that, instead of issuing these arms to them, we ourselves should endeavour to shoot such of the Bakongo as carried most arrows directly hostilities began, so that our people, covered by our firing, might rush up and take the weapons of the slain, and so be provided with arms in the use of which they were practised, instead of the rifles with which they had never learned to shoot. This we decided to attempt as soon as any hostile move was made by the enemy. Our Bambala porters then proceeded to dress their hair with oil, and to smear their countenances with Reckitt’s blue, and, thus beautified, waited calmly for the trouble to begin. At this crisis, as always, our men behaved in a most exemplary manner, never causing us a moment’s anxiety as to their loyalty, and never complicating affairs by an aggressive act or word to the Bakongo. That night we loaded all our guns before we put them by our bedsides, and we placed in readiness two boxes of rockets usable in a 12-bore shot-gun, which, although they were incapable of inflicting any damage, we thought might possibly strike terror into the hearts of the Bakongo. After we had turned in we heard a meeting being held within the village, at which several speakers held forth at great length, but although we could just make out that war was the subject of discussion, we could not hear sufficiently well to gather any information as to what the natives intended to do. We fully expected to be attacked that night, but, as a matter of fact, the Bakongo never left their village until morning, and then no one approached our camp. The women and children still kept out of sight, and we noticed that all of the men carried arms, and many of them were busily occupied in putting new tips or feathers upon their arrows, in manufacturing new bows, or in paring down stout creepers with which to make bow-strings. Our porters had purchased a good deal of food upon arriving at Kenge when the natives were friendly, so we told them on no account to accept any eatables from the Bagongo should they offer any for sale, for we feared that some attempt might be made to poison them; for ourselves we had plenty of European stores, so that for the time being we had no need to bother about our food supply. But the outlook was not a particularly bright one, for it was evident that the Bakongo, if they did not attack us, would certainly attempt to starve us out, and we should therefore be eventually compelled to retreat towards the Loange, in which case it was practically certain that we should find that the people of Kenge had caused the inhabitants of the villages through which we had passed previously to rise against us upon our return journey, and we should therefore be compelled to fight our way to the Loange with only twenty-four men, many of whom would be occupied in transporting the objects which we had already bought for the Museum; for we were firmly determined that, even if we had to abandon the rest of our baggage, we would do our best to bring away the things which we had procured at a cost of so much trouble and expense. Even if we could succeed in reaching the Loange River, we were sure that the natives would have concealed all the canoes, so that our plight by the riverside would hardly be better than it was at Kenge. During the day, possibly as a result of advice given by some speaker at the over-night assembly in the village, the Bakongo proceeded to clear away the cassava bushes around our camp. A worse piece of strategy could hardly be imagined, for whereas the bushes had offered perfect cover for any one who wished to creep up and shoot at us as we sat at meals or writing in our shed, now that they had been removed we had an open space around us, in which we should be able to do some damage with our sporting rifles. Their removal appeared to us to render our danger far less imminent. Another night passed and we were not molested. Upon the following morning Torday considered that the time had arrived for putting our clockwork elephant to the test, and to exhibit some little black dolls which we had received from London during our last stay at Dima.

He accordingly tied one of the dolls in a prominent position upon the ridge pole of his tent, and we soon observed that its presence had been noticed by the Bakongo. As a rule, when a native is really impressed by anything that he thinks may be of a supernatural character, he disguises his feelings, and does not exhibit the great curiosity with which he usually views any strange thing the white man may show him, and we saw that the Bakongo were extremely shy of our little “medicine,” as we called our doll, for no crowd collected round it, but nearly every one in the place must have had a look at it from a distance, each one soon passing on silently and with a puzzled expression on his face.

Later on we saw the second chief of the village loitering near our camp. This man had always appeared to us to be less inclined for war than his colleague, the old wizard, so Torday called out to him to come and talk matters over with us. After a little hesitation he came. Torday explained to him that although we did not want war, we were by no means afraid of it, and showed the chief our guns. We also related a few shooting stories, not all of them, perhaps, strictly true, in which we dwelt upon the enormous number of buffalo, &c., that daily fell to our rifles when we took the trouble to go out shooting; and Torday gave the man to understand that the presence of a great fetish was responsible for our success in the use of our guns. The chief could not suppress his curiosity as to the nature of this “fetish,” and Torday, after pretending that he scarcely dared to worry it by introducing strangers, finally agreed to show it to him. He entered his tent, and wound up the clockwork elephant, while I remained outside with the chief. At a word from Torday I drew back the flap and gently pushed the native in. The elephant began to move. One glance at the little toy walking along the top of a gun-case, waving its trunk in the semi-darkness of the tent, was sufficient for the chief; with a gasp of fear he sprang backward through the tent door and attempted to bolt. We insisted upon his having another look, but it was a very brief one, and crying, “I will bring you back those chickens we have stolen,” the old man rushed off to the village as hard as his legs would carry him. A stir was immediately noticeable among the Bakongo, and after some delay a party of them came over to us, bringing with them the stolen fowls. Torday then gave a discourse upon the might of our “elephant,” but declined to disturb it again to satisfy their curiosity; he informed the people, however, that it never slept, so that any attempt to surprise us could only result in rousing it to anger, with horrible consequences to the offenders. He then proceeded to set fire to a little whisky, which, in the darkness, the natives of course mistook for water, and remarked that the local rivers would blaze up finely if once we took it into our heads to burn them.

The effect of our game of bluff upon the people of Kenge was greater than we could ever have hoped it would be. The attitude of the Bakongo towards us immediately changed. I do not mean to say that their hostility changed to friendliness, but their desire to attack us, or to starve us out, gave way to a wish to get rid of us as soon as possible without arousing the anger of our “fetish.” Upon the day following the exhibition of our elephant we found the people quite ready to discuss with us the possibility of our moving on to another village, and the once truculent chief now informed us that his people would be perfectly willing to carry our loads on to the village of Makasu, some eight miles as the crow flies to the north-east, but, bearing in mind the fact that news travels quickly in Africa, we were anxious to ascertain whether or not the inhabitants of this latter place would be willing to receive us, after having heard, as doubtless they already had, of the magical powers which we were believed to possess. The chief of Kenge offered to send one of his men as an envoy to them, and Mayuyu, who had performed the same office for us before our journey from Kanenenke, suggested that he should accompany him. These two accordingly set out for Makasu, and returned in the evening with the information that the people there, who we now learned for the first time were Bashilele, were quite willing to receive our visit.

We stayed on two or three more days at Kenge, however, employing our time in taking photographs, for the natives were much too frightened of our elephant to object to our wandering freely about, and using our cameras as much as we liked. We learned now that the reason for the hostility of the Bakongo was that, although they knew that Torday had brought little or no iron with him, they had always hoped that upon my arrival a further supply of that commodity would appear, and it was their disappointment, when they found that I had nothing with me that they wanted, which caused their friendly attitude to change to one of insolent aggression. During the period of strained relationship with the natives which I have just described, Torday and I were both of us confident that, in the event of hostilities, we should be able to retrace our steps to the Loange, even if considerably harassed on the way; but when I look back upon the incident, I do not think that, had the Bakongo decided to attack us, and to raise the western villages against us, we should any of us have had the slightest chance of reaching the river alive. I think, therefore, that it is not too much to claim for the clockwork toy that it prevented a massacre. It is possible that some of my readers may have imagined that we contemplated swindling the natives when I stated that we were prepared to sell one of our elephants for some very valuable curio, but I think the events at Kenge should prove that the toy possessed a very real value for the native, and my readers can easily imagine how much the possession of it would increase the prestige of any chief to whom we sold one. By our use of the elephant we were certainly taking advantage of the negro’s ignorance and superstition, but as this course assuredly prevented bloodshed, I think that we were fully justified in adopting it. Our envoys having been welcomed at Makasu, we despatched all but three or four of our Bambala porters in the very early hours of one morning to carry some of our loads on to that village, ordering them to return as soon as possible, leaving two or three of their number on guard over the baggage. From what Mayuyu had told us of the distance to Makasu, we concluded that our men should have returned to Kenge by about 11 o’clock in the morning, but it was not until sundown that they turned up. During these long hours of waiting we endured an agony of suspense. I have already mentioned that we had been informed of the presence in the neighbourhood of a party of Badjok traders, and that we had considered it highly probable that these people were engaged in the purchase of slaves. Knowing them to be well armed and warlike, we began to fear that our porters had encountered them and had been captured, to be hurried off southwards, and sold in the neighbourhood of the Angola frontier. Such a possibility filled us with horror, for we had a very real affection for our gallant followers from the Kwilu, and we realised that, had they been taken prisoners, we should be absolutely powerless to rescue them, although we were fully determined to start off in pursuit of the Badjok should we learn that our men had been taken. Such a pursuit should have been futile, for we could not expect any assistance from the Bakongo, and the Badjok would certainly march faster than we could follow. Our feelings, however, were so strong upon the subject that I have no doubt we should have attempted it. Our relief when our men turned up safe and sound knew no bounds. It appears that, having started in the darkness of the early morning under the guidance of Mayuyu, who had only once traversed the road to Makasu, the Bambala had lost their way in some woodland, and had taken many hours to reach Makasu, proceeding by a very circuitous route. Upon their arrival, however, the Bashilele had received them kindly, and had offered them food and water, expressing their desire to see us in their village as soon as we could come along. Next day, therefore, we turned our backs on Kenge, and proceeded into the country of the Bashilele. I went on in advance, while Torday remained at Kenge until all the loads had been despatched. Shortly after leaving the village I came upon quite a considerable river, known to the natives as the Lumbunji, which is here about sixty yards in width, with a very strong stream. From what we could gather from the natives, this river must rise somewhere near to, or just to the south of, the Angola boundary, and it flows parallel to the Loange, entering the Kasai a little to the eastward of that river. For a few miles from its confluence with the Kasai it is navigable for canoes, but at Kenge the stream is too strong and the river much too littered up with fallen trees to render the use of boats possible. A rough bridge of logs had existed across it on the way from Kenge to Makasu, but this had recently been destroyed by the Bakongo, evidently with the intention of cutting off our retreat to the eastwards, so that I had to waste some time on the march while our Bambala felled saplings and reconstructed the bridge.

Upon arriving at Makasu I found all the inhabitants squatting in the shed beneath the ramparts of the village awaiting my arrival. Not one man was armed, and I, of course, carefully avoided arousing any suspicion by appearing in the village with a rifle in my hands or with a gun-bearer close beside me. The chief greeted me, and took me to a shed outside the walls where the loads we had despatched the day before had been deposited. Here I awaited the arrival of the Bakongo, who were bringing on our belongings from Kenge. They had agreed to accept wages in salt for this service, but I fully anticipated that some trouble might arise over their payment. To my astonishment, however, they accepted the amount of salt agreed upon without a murmur, and by dint of throwing in a few additional handfuls of that useful commodity to the portions of one or two women who had volunteered to carry loads, and by giving a little here and there as presents to children who accompanied their mothers, I managed to send the majority of the Bakongo back to their homes smiling and contented. One of our boxes had been broken open on the way. That box contained the clockwork elephant! The two Bakongo who were carrying it had turned over some cloth which they found upon opening the lid, in the hope that there might be some iron or knives concealed beneath it, and what their feelings were when they discovered that they had disturbed the dreaded elephant I cannot imagine. At any rate they deposited it at Makasu and started off for home at a run, without waiting a moment to receive the payment which I should have been perfectly willing to give them. Torday came on just before sundown, accompanied by the Bambala, who had that day accomplished the journey from Kenge twice. An incident occurred during this march which serves to show the lack of forethought of the negro. Realising that our men had a hard day’s work before them, Torday had in the morning issued orders that they should partake of a hearty meal before starting upon their first journey, and that they should carry a little food with them on the way. When he arrived in Makasu all the Bambala excepting one (Moamba, the youth who had joined us at Luano), accompanied him, and, imagining that he had stopped to wash himself at some stream, the lad’s absence at first caused us no anxiety, but when three or four hours later he had not put in an appearance, we feared that he must have been molested by the Bakongo, or that some accident might have happened to him. Several of his companions at once volunteered to return along the road in search of him, and, taking one of our camp lanterns, they set out. After some time they returned, bringing with them Moamba, who was in a very exhausted condition. We gave him a good dose of whisky and water, which we had some difficulty in making him drink, and some food, and then inquired what had happened to him. “Hunger seized me,” replied the boy, “so I lay down in the forest.” When asked what he thought was going to happen to him there, he said that he did not know. He then informed us that he had forgotten to eat anything before starting out in the morning, despite our orders that the men were to partake of a hearty breakfast, and apparently had thrown away the food he had brought with him for the journey. When he began to feel weak from the effects of hunger he had ceased to care in the least what happened to him. A day or two’s rest at Makasu, however, soon set him on his feet again, and he was quite strong by the time we were ready to move on to the next village.