The advance guard scanning the track, and fully 1888.
April 4.
Indémwani. lessoned in all the crooked ways and wiles of the pigmies and aborigines, picked up many a cleverly-hidden skewer from the path. At some points they were freely planted under an odd leaf or two of phrynium, or at the base of a log, over which, as over a stile, a wayfarer might stride and plant his foot deep into a barbed skewer well smeared with dark poison. But we were too learned now in the art of African forestcraft, and the natives were not so skilled in the invention of expedients as to produce new styles of molestation and annoyance.
The dwarfs' village at the crossing was our next resting-place, and Indémwani was reached on the 4th. The next day we moved to another dwarfs' village, and in the neighbouring plantain grove Saat Tato and a few friends, while collecting a few of the fruit, made a splendid capture of pigmies. We had four women and a boy, and in them I saw two distinct types. One evidently belonged to that same race described as the Akka, with small, cunning, monkey eyes, close, and deeply set. The four others possessed large, round eyes, full and prominent, broad round foreheads and round faces, small hands and feet, with slight prognathy of jaws, figures well formed, though diminutive, and of a bricky complexion. "Partial roast coffee," "chocolate," "cocoa," and "café au lait" are terms that do not describe the colour correctly, but the common red clay brick when half baked would correspond best in colour to that of the complexion of these little people. Saat Tato reported that there were about twenty of them stealing plantains which belonged to the natives of Indepuya, who were probably deterred from defending their property by the rumour of our presence in the woods. The monkey-eyed woman had a remarkable pair of mischievous orbs, protruding lips overhanging her chin, a prominent abdomen, narrow, flat chest, sloping shoulders, long arms, feet turned greatly inwards and very short lower legs, as being fitly characteristic of the link long sought between the average modern humanity and its Darwinian progenitors, and certainly deserving of being classed as an extremely low, degraded, almost a bestial type of a 1888.
April 4.
Indémwani. human being. One of the others was a woman evidently a mother, though she could not have seen her seventeenth year. No fault could be found in the proportion of any one member; her complexion was bright and healthy; her eyes were brilliant, round, and large; her upper lip had the peculiar cut of that of the Wambutti noticeable in the woman at Ugarrowwas, and the chief's wife of Indékaru, which is the upper edge curving upward with a sharp angle and dropping perpendicularly, resembling greatly a clean up and down cut with a curl up of the skin as though it had contracted somewhat. I believe this to be as marked a feature of the Wambutti as the full nether lip is said to be characteristic of the Austrian. The colour of the lips was pinkish. The hands were small, fingers delicate and long, but skinny and puckered, the feet measured seven inches and her height was four feet four inches.
So perfect were the proportions of this girl-mother that she appeared at first to be but an undersized woman, her low stature being but the result of premature sexual intercourse or some other accidental circumstance, but when we placed some of our Zanzibar boys of fifteen and sixteen years old by her side, and finally placed a woman of the agricultural aborigines near her, it was clear to everyone that these small creatures were a distinct race.
Three hours beyond this great Mbutti village we reached Barya-Kunya amid a drizzly rain.
On the 8th we reached Indepessu, and two days later we travelled from the base of Pisgah, along an easterly path, a new track which led us through the little villages of Mandé to the Ituri river. The natives had all fled from Mandé and the slopes of Pisgah across the river with their movable property, and the men were awaiting events on the left bank, confident that they were beyond reach. As we emerged into view on the right bank I was quite struck with the light brown mass the warriors made against the blackish green of the vegetation behind them. Had they been of the colour of the Zanzibaris they would have formed an almost black mass, but they 1888.
April 8.
Mandé. resembled in colour the ochreous clay banks of this river. They shot a few arrows amongst us across the 150 yards wide stream; some fell short and others hurtled harmlessly by us several yards. In our turn we replied and a general scamper occurred. Ninety minutes later the Expedition was across the Ituri by means of the boat. The vanguard picked up a ten-pound packet of clean native salt which had been dropped by the natives in their flight. Salt was a condiment greatly needed, and we were greatly rejoiced at the prize. We were now in the territory of the Bakuba, near the clearing of Kande-koré, which was one of the richest clearings in the forest of the Upper Congo basin. On the edge of the bank we were 3,000 feet above the sea.
Three-and-a-half hours' march from the Ituri, we issued out of the forest, and again the change from perpetual twilight to brilliant sunlight, and a blue sky was astonishing, and we all smiled to witness its effects on the nerves of our gentle friend and companion, the first son of Erin who had ever viewed the grass lands of these regions. This was the 289th day of Dr. Parke's forest life, and the effect of this sudden emergence out of the doleful shades in view of this enlarged view from the green earth to the shining and glowing concave of Heaven caused him to quiver with delight. Deep draughts of champagne could not have painted his cheeks with a deeper hue than did this exhilarating prospect which now met him.
On the road just before leaving the bush we passed a place where an elephant spear had fallen to the ground, and buried itself so deep that three men were unable to heave it up. Such a force, we argued, would have slain an elephant on the instant.
While sketching Pisgah Mountain in the afternoon from our first camp in the pasture land, I observed a cloud approaching it from the N.W., and all the forest beyond was shaded by its deep shadows, while the rolling plains still basked in hot sunshine. Presently another cloud from the S.E. appeared round the southern extremity of Mazamboni's range, and as it advanced, 1888.
April 12.
Bessé. spread over the blue sky, and became merged with the cloud over the forest, and then rain fell.
At an altitude of 3,200 feet above the sea the village of Bessé is situated, seven hours' march from the Ituri. Though it was yet early forenoon we camped, the abundance of good ripe bananas, corn, fowls, sugar-cane, and banana wine being very tempting, and the distance to other villages east being unknown. Quite an active skirmish soon occurred while we were engaged making ready our quarters. Fetteh, the sole interpreter to the tribes of the plains, was grievously wounded over the stomach. The Babessé attempted various means to molest us as the long grass favoured them, but by posting sharpshooters in the native lookouts in the trees the knowledge that their tactics were supervised soon demoralised them.
We had some speech by means of a native of Uganda with one of these natives, who among his remarks said, "We are quite assured that you black men are creatures like ourselves, but what of those white chiefs of yours? Whence do they come?"