The boys went into extravagant delight over the small and compact moving-picture outfit. Burt promptly took charge of this, or rather promised to take charge, for when the whole outfit had been sealed up it would be sent down to the steamer like the other supplies.
"Tell you what," he cried, "we'll get some great little old pictures! You let an elephant chase you, Uncle George, while I get a good view and Critch shoots him!"
"Don't want much, do you?" laughed his uncle. "Nothing like that for mine. I'd sooner have an elephant after me, at that, than a big buffalo. That's the most dangerous animal we'll find in Africa."
"How 'bout rhinoceros?" challenged Critch.
"All poppycock," snorted the explorer. "A rhino can't see ten feet away. He goes by smell. He'll usually run away unless he's wounded. But a buffalo doesn't wait to be wounded. You rouse him up out of a comfortable feeding place and he'll go for you. Takes more than one bullet to kill him unless you're lucky."
The boys now stocked up with fresh linen for the voyage while Mr. Wallace looked up his own guns, which he usually stored in London. They stopped at the Carleton over Sunday and Monday. As Burt's father had sales offices in London they secured a large touring car without cost and spent the two days riding about the historic city. There were various minor details of their outfits to be attended to on Monday and on Tuesday noon they went aboard the Benguela, when she arrived from Liverpool.
She proved to be a large cargo and passenger boat and was very comfortably fitted up. They had seen nothing of John Quincy Adams Washington but Mr. Wallace smilingly assured them that he would show up in time. Sure enough, when they went up the gangplank the big negro was waiting with his all-embracing grin.
"Good mornin', sar, good mornin'!" he cried, taking charge of their hand baggage and assuming a lordly attitude over the stewards. "Very hauspicious day, sar! John t'ink we 'ave very fine trip, sar!"
And a fine trip they had. There were a dozen other passengers on board. Most of these were clerks or traders going out to positions at Sierra Leone or the Gold Coast, with one or two Frenchmen and officials of the Congo State. When they crossed the Equator there were the usual ceremonies and horseplay among the sailors, and the boys thoroughly enjoyed themselves. By the time they left the Gold Coast behind and headed for Banana Point Burt felt better than he had ever been in his life and his uncle assured him that he need not worry about the fever.
Finally the long reddish cliffs and grassy up-lands of the Congo coast drew into sight late on the fifteenth afternoon. The Benguela took a black pilot aboard and proceeded straight up to the port of Banana. Mr. Wallace and the boys at once disembarked and interviewed the customs officials and took a launch up to the capital, Boma. The steamer would follow them after discharging some cargo.