"Am I strong?"
"Ugh."
"Have I a good liver?"
"Ugh."
So it goes. One reason why these men talk so much is that all their work must be accompanied by some sound. Up in the diamond fields I watched a native chopping wood. Every time the steel blade buried itself in the log the man said: "Good axe. Cut deep." He talked to the weapon just as he would speak to a human being. It all goes to show that the Congo native is simply a child grown to man's stature.
The fact that I had to resort to the teapoy illustrates the unreliability of mechanical transport in the wilds. I had tried in vain to make progress with an automobile and a motor boat, and was forced as a last resort to get back to the human being as carrier. He remains the unfailing beast of burden despite all scientific progress.
I slept that night in a native house on the outskirts of a village. It was what is called a chitenda, which is a grass structure open at all the sides. The last white man to occupy this domicile was Louis Franck, the Belgian Minister of the Colonies, who had gone up to the Forminiere diamond fields a few weeks before. He used the same jitney that I had started in, and it also broke down with him. Moody was his chauffeur. They made their way on foot to this village. Moody told the chief that he had the real Bula Matadi with him. The chief solemnly looked at Franck and said, "He is no Bula Matadi because he does not wear any medals." Most high Belgian officials wear orders and the native dotes on shiny ornaments. The old savage refused to sell the travellers any food and the Minister had to share the beans of the negro boys who accompanied him.
Daybreak saw us on the move. For hours we swung through dense forest which made one think of the beginnings of the world when the big trees were king. The vastness and silence were only comparable to the brooding mystery of the jungle nights. You have no feel of fear but oddly enough, a strange sense of security.