"Then I shall engage a couple of berths on board the first steamer leaving for the Indian ocean. I have travelled along the map with you so frequently during the last six months that I know exactly what to do."
CHAPTER II.
Whilst the two friends, Dr. Desrioux and the Count de Pommerelle, were getting ready to set out for equatorial Africa, the European caravan, whose course we have followed up to now, escorted by the army of Munza, King of the Monbuttoos, was making its onward way through unknown tribes, in districts marked on the map by these words—unexplored regions. We resume the journal of the expedition, edited by M. Périères.
"To think that we should ever have complained of the slow progress of our caravan! We used to do our four or five leagues a day, and we even managed to get over from five to six when the country was open; now with Munza's army we scarcely move more than six or eight miles (English) in the twenty-four hours. We are, it is true, in the midst of innumerable water-courses, which, by their entwinings, form a net-work similar to that met with by Livingstone in other parts of Africa, and compared by him to the patterns formed by the frost on a window-pane.
The rainy season, now on the point of coming to an end, appears desirous of leaving behind it lingering memorials of its stay in the provinces of the equator it converts plains into marshes and makes every stream a river. For quite half our time we do not walk, we dabble. If we were to meet with a regular river, like the Gadda, for instance, a whole morning would be taken up in transporting the army from one bank to the other. There is, nevertheless, no lack of boatmen, numbers of them having joined us by Munza's order, and placed at our disposal not only their canoes, but also enormous trees, felled on the bank, and forming a raft or a floating bridge according to circumstances.
When it comes to making our way through a forest, our delays are even greater, an afternoon being frequently consumed in marching a league. The men are obliged to hew a passage with their axes through the dense thickets, destitute of even a track, for nature in a very few days conceals those which may from time to time be made. And yet, notwithstanding the difficulties which spring up without intermission when crossing these almost virgin forests, and in spite of the humid heat which is so oppressive underneath their leafy vaults, it is impossible to resist the temptation, every now and then, to stop and gaze around in admiration. The continuous showers have succeeded in making their way at last through the overhanging foliage and the interlacing creepers, and everywhere flowers of every sort are in full bloom. Here the Ashantee pepper tree, with its coral berries, completely encircles the trunks of the trees; there are garlands, rich festoons, clusters of flowers of a brilliant scarlet, and bell-flowers of bright orange, all sparkling in the darkness of the undergrowth, and apparently specially destined to give light to these profound solitudes wherein is an unending night.
As it is a matter of considerable difficulty to maintain a close surveillance over Munza's army or to preserve strict discipline on the march through this labyrinth, the men take advantage of the position to stray away amongst the least bushy thickets and, ever mindful of their appetites, to hunt everything, eatable and uneatable. One band of twenty or thirty men will make an attack on the chimpanzees, the usual denizens of these forests; another lays siege with burning torches to a beehive, and swallows with equal greed the wax and the honey, and the insects which produce them. Here and there a solitary soldier will stumble across a regular town of ant-hills, from ten to twelve feet high, and, making a raid on the insects, crushes them in his hands, and eats them up.
In the villages our task is still more difficult, owing to the gross immorality which prevails throughout the kingdom of Munza, but, nevertheless, by dint of continually struggling against the powers of nature and the passions of man, we contrive to traverse the tract which separates us from the district governed by Degberra, and encounter that chief on his way to meet us.
Though Munza has preserved an absolute silence as regards his brother, Nassar, some time ago, drew for us a gloomy enough portrait of this ruler. To begin with, Degberra is a parricide, neither more nor less. His father lived too long for him, and became a bore; so he had him assassinated. But this crime, intended as a stepping stone to the Monbuttoo throne, was of advantage to Munza alone, who lost no time is assuming the crown, and made his brother merely his lieutenant or viceroy.
We are led to suppose that our host and friend is ignorant of the murder, from the circumstance that, since he has been secure on the throne, he does not appear to have thought of getting rid of his brother. A parricide would scarcely falter on his amiable way, and would not have recoiled, from excess of sensitiveness, before a convenient act of fratricide, almost marked out for him. It is quite possible, however, that Munza's conduct furnishes another instance of his tact; if he did not put Degberra out of the way, he took very good care to make him innocuous. Knowing that his brother was a slave to his passions, he furnished his harem with the prettiest women in the kingdom, and Degberra forgot politics in sensuality. He is now, consequently, an effeminate, listless being, incapable of revolting against his sovereign, who, also, is a source of constant terror to him.