Here we were joined by numbers of natives coming from Mushari with loads of food. On inquiry I found that they were refugees, having been driven out by the Baleka or Bareka, a tribe of cannibals from the Congo who had raided their country. They told me that those who had survived were living in the forest, and that great numbers were dying every day of hunger. On the morrow we skirted along the base of the new volcano for about fourteen miles through the most beautiful glades, coming across several pools of water. Dead natives lined the path, showing that the tales of our last night's companions were only too true. Towards evening we reached the great western stream, and here we met several natives who were living amongst the stones in the most awful misery, hardly daring even to make a fire. They said that they had been living thus for six months. When driven to despair by hunger, they would make a dash for an armful of half-ripe grain, each time losing some of their number by the Baleka, who were watching all the paths. I lined their bellies and warmed their hearts (identical organs, I believe, in the African and perhaps some others) with beans; and in the morning we advanced into the dreaded land. All the paths up the hills that led to the uplands of Mushari were lined with grain and torn skins, relics of those unfortunates who had been caught; and dried pools of blood, gaunt skeletons, grinning skulls, and trampled grass told a truly African tale. On arriving at the top of the ridge a beautiful rolling country opened out before us, dotted with clusters of grass huts and stately trees; russet patches of ripening mtama contrasted with the emerald green of the wild banana, range upon range of purple hills melted into the nether-world of a tropical horizon. But we were not to enjoy the scenery long, for distant howls showed that we had been observed, silhouetted as we were against the sky; and strings of black figures, brandishing spears and howling at the expected feast, came running down from a neighbouring hill. I was still uncertain as to the exact state of affairs. The refugees and the numerous corpses made it obvious that there was something in the wind, but I imagined that it was merely an ordinary case of native fractiousness, some intertribal squabble, such as occurs every day in these remote corners of the Dark Continent, and that the Baleka and their doings were merely a characteristic effort of the African imagination. But the diabolical noise made by the onrushing natives decided me that the matter was serious. I questioned my guide as to their intentions, and was scarcely reassured by his naïve remark: "They are coming to eat us." Accordingly I kept quiet behind a clump of grass till they were quite close and there was no further doubt of their intentions, and opened fire with my light rifle. They disappeared like rabbits into the standing crops.
We then hurried on to the huts from which we had seen these people come; but they were too quick for us, and fled. A cloud of vultures hovering over the spot gave me an inkling of what I was about to see, but the realization defies description; it haunts me in my dreams, at dinner it sits on my leg-of-mutton, it bubbles in my soup--in fine, Watonga would not eat the potatoes that grew in the same country, and went without food for forty-eight hours rather than do so: ask your African friends what that means; negroes have not delicate stomachs. Loathsome, revolting, a hideous nightmare of horrors; and yet I must tell briefly what I saw, for the edification of any disciple of the poor-dear-black-man, down-with-the-Maxim, Africa-for-the-African Creed, who may chance to peruse these pages.
Item.--A bunch of human entrails drying on a stick.
Item.--A howling baby.
Item.--A pot of soup with bright yellow fat.
Item.--A skeleton with the skin on lying in the middle of the huts; apparently been dead about three months.
Item.--A gnawed thigh-bone with shreds of half-cooked meat attached.
Item.--A gnawed forearm, raw.
Item.--Three packets of small joints, evidently prepared for flight, but forgotten at the last moment.
Item.--A head, with a spoon left sticking in the brains.