For six hours Moody laboured under the car while I sat in the glaring sun alongside the road and cursed fate. Nelson spent his time eating all the available food in sight. Finally, at three o'clock Moody gave up and said, "We'll have to make the rest of this trip in a teapoy."
A teapoy is usually a hammock slung on a pole carried on the shoulders of natives. We sent a runner in to Robison, who came back with two teapoys and a squad of forty blacks to transport us. The "teapoy boy," as he is called, is as much a part of the African scheme of life as a driver or a chauffeur is in America. He must be big, strong, and sound of wind, because he is required to go at a run all the time. For any considerable journey each teapoy has a squad of eight men who alternate on the run without losing a step. They always sing as they go.
I had never ridden in a teapoy before and now I began a continuous trip in one which lasted eight hours. Night fell almost before we got started and it was a strange sensation to go sailing through the silent black woods and the excited villages where thousands of naked persons of all sizes turned out to see the show. After two hours I began to feel as if I had been tossed up for a week in an army blanket. The wrist watch that I had worn throughout the war and which had withstood the fiercest shell shocks and bombardments, was jolted to a standstill. After the fourth hour I became accustomed to the movement and even went to sleep for a while. Midnight brought us to Kabambaie and the banks of the Kasai, where I found food and sanctuary at a Forminiere post. Here the thousands of tons of freight that come up the river from Dima by steamer and which are carried by motor trucks, ox teams, and on the heads of natives to this point, are placed on whale-boats and sent up the river to Tshikapa.
Before going to bed I sent a runner to Tshikapa to notify Donald Doyle, Managing Engineer of the Forminiere in the field, that I was coming and to send a motor car out to meet me. I promised this runner much matabeesh, which is the African word for a tip, if he would run the whole way. The distance through the jungle was exactly seventy-two miles and he covered it, as I discovered when I reached Tshikapa, in exactly twenty-six hours, a remarkable feat. The matabeesh I bestowed, by the way, was three francs (about eighteen cents) and the native regarded it as a princely gift because it amounted to nearly half a month's wages.
By this time my confidence in the African jitney was somewhat shaken. A new motor-boat had just been received at Kabambaie and I thought I would take a chance with it and start up the Kasai the next day. Moody, assisted by several other engineers, set to work to get it in shape. At noon of the second day, when we were about to start, the engine went on a sympathetic strike with the jitney, and once more I was halted. I said to Moody, "I am going to Tshikapa without any further delay if I have to walk the whole way." This was not necessary for, thanks to the Forminiere organization, which always has hundreds of native porters at Kabambaie, I was able to organize a caravan in a few hours.
After lunch we departed with a complete outfit of tents, bedding, and servants. The black personnel was thirty porters and a picked squad of thirty-five teapoy boys to carry Moody and myself. Usually these caravans have a flag. I had none so the teapoy capita fished out a big red bandanna handkerchief, which he tied to a stick. With the crimson banner flying and the teapoy carriers singing and playing rude native instruments, we started off at a trot. I felt like an explorer going into the unknown places. It was the real thing in jungle experience.
From two o'clock until sunset we trotted through the wilds, which were almost thrillingly beautiful. In Africa there is no twilight, and darkness swoops down like a hawk. All afternoon the teapoy men, after their fashion, carried on what was literally a running crossfire of questions among themselves. They usually boast of their strength and their families and always discuss the white man they are carrying and his characteristics. I heard much muttering of Mafutta Mingi and I knew long before we stopped that my weight was not a pleasant topic.
A CONGO DIAMOND MINE
