On the morning of the 10th, anxious for the European provisions which we were carrying for the officers at Fort Bodo, I had them examined, and discovered to my consternation that fifty-seven tins of meat, teas, coffees, milks, were short—had been eaten by the Manyuema. If a look had potency sufficient to blast them, they would have speedily been reduced to ashes. “Dear me, how could the tins have vanished?” asked the chief Sadi. Ah, how? But the provision boxes were taken from his party, and Winchester and Maxim ammunition cases were served instead to them as freight.
At 2 P.M. the column of foragers returned, bringing from three to six days’ provisions, which they had gathered from an abandoned plantation. The bearers had refreshed themselves previous to gathering. Now, in return for my gruel, each member had to refund me one pound of flour, as my reserve store, and one pound for the sick, who were deprived of the power to forage, and who were rejected by the messes. So that in this manner the sick received about eight pounds of flour, or dried plantains, and I owned a reserve of 200 pounds for future use.
Within an hour-and-a-half on the 11th we had reached Kilonga-Longa’s ferry. The natives, fearing a repetition of his raids to the west of the Ihuru, had destroyed every canoe, and thus prevented me from crossing to pay Kilonga-Longa another visit, and to settle some accounts with him. The river was also in flood, and a gaunt and hungry wilderness stretched all round us. There was no other way for it than to follow the Ihuru upward until we could find means to cross to the east, or left side. Our course was now N.E. by N.
1888.
Nov. 12.
Forest.
On the 12th, we followed a track, along which quite a tribe of pigmies must have passed. It was lined with amoma fruit-skins, and shells of nuts, and the crimson rinds of phrynia berries. No wood-beans, or fenessi, or mabungu, are to be found in this region, as on the south bank of Ituri River. On reaching camp, I found that at the ferry, near the native camp at which we starved four days, six people had succumbed—a Madi, from a poisonous fungus, the Lado soldier, who was speared above Wasp Rapids, two Soudanese of the rear-column, a Manyuema boy in the service of Mr. Bonny, and Ibrahim, a fine young Zanzibari, from a poisoned skewer in the foot.
During the 13th the great forest was perceptibly improved for travel. Our elephant and game track had brought us across another track leading easterly from Andari, and both joined presently, developing to a highway much patronised by the pigmy tribes. This we followed for two hours. We could tell where they had stopped to light their pipes, and to crack nuts, and trap game, and halt to gossip. The twigs were broken three feet from the ground, showing that they were snapped by dwarfs. Where it was a little muddy the path showed high delicate insteps, proving their ancient ancestry and aristocratic descent, and small feet not larger than those of young English misses of eight years old. The path improved as we tramped along; it grew a highway of promise. Camps of the dwarfs were numerous. The soil was ochreous, the trees were larger, and towered to magnificent heights.
1888.
Nov. 13.
Forest.
