Running the canoe up a narrow creek, the men sprang on shore with their axes, and returned by and by bearing with them a huge bunch of ripe bananas, culled from a river-side plantation. These, with some of the biscuits which the padre had thoughtfully packed among his baggage, and a draught of not very palatable water lapped up from the river, Tom found quite sufficient to stay his hunger and thirst. The crew diversified their meal with ground-nuts and a stuff that looked like moist almond-rock, which they took out of a wrapping of leaves. One of them offered Mbutu a small hunk, and he broke off about a fourth part of it, handing the rest to Tom.
"Not to-day, thanks! What is it, may I ask?"
"Berrah nice, sah! Cheese, sah!"
"Really! And what is it made of? Not milk, judging by the look of it."
"Mango, sah! Chop mango stone; take out all inside; knock him about, sah; make cheese. Berrah nice, sah!"
"Well, eat it up, and then we'll be off again. Tell the men I'm pleased with them, and hope they'll do as well all day."
On the way back to the canoe, Tom happened to tread on a pair of large ants crawling on the grass. He was almost overcome by the stench from their crushed bodies. Then every exposed part of his body was stung by mosquitoes, and his head became enveloped in a swarm of yellowish gnats, which Mbutu called kungu-flies.
"Berrah nice, sah!" he said, as they got into the canoe. "Black man catch kungu, sah! Mash, mash, all one cake. Make little fire; fry cake; eat all up."
Tom ruefully thought of his small stock of biscuits, and in this alternative diet recognized an additional motive for pressing on.
It was a broiling hot afternoon, and as the canoe sped on its way Tom saw scores of crocodiles lying on the bank half out of the water, basking in the sunlight, and digesting their food, their eyelids drowsily drooping, their jaws wide open in a sort of prolonged yawn. Just above one of these dozing reptiles, a number of storks and cranes and herons stood perched on one leg, regarding the crocodile, Tom fancied, with a contemplative air, more in sorrow than in anger. Farther on, he was amused to see a young elephant twining its trunk about the neck of a graceful zebra, as in an affectionate embrace. All the afternoon, indeed, he was kept interested by an ever-changing panorama, eye and ear being alike captivated incessantly by something new and strange. He was naturally observant, and many curious details impressed themselves upon his mind without his being conscious of them. He would have liked to stay and study this new world at his leisure, but the temptation to linger was counteracted by his sense of the urgency of his mission. The only other drawback to his enjoyment was the pain caused by the mosquito bites, which increased as the day wore on.