DECIDE TO BREAK UP OUR CAMP AND RETURN—ARRIVAL AT ROGALA'S HOME—I MAKE MYSELF A PAIR OF SKIN TROUSERS—DEPARTURE FOR ROTEMBO'S VILLAGE—OUR GRAND RECEPTION AND SUCCEEDING FESTIVITIES—ROTEMBO'S PROMISE—FAREWELL
The monkey meat did not last more than two days. Then food became as scarce as before. We had clearly exhausted that part of the forest.
"The times are hard with us," I said to Rogala; "the bashikouays have driven the game away. There are no more koola nuts. Let us go back to your home, where we shall find plenty of plantain and cassava."
Rogala agreed readily to my proposal. The two following days we rested and made preparations for our departure. I was very glad to return to the home of my hunters. My clothes were in tatters; hardly anything was left of my trousers; I had worn out all my shoes; my old panama hat was a sight.
Joyfully we left our old forest camp, and after an uneventful journey we reached the home of my hunters. It was time indeed. How well I slept in my little hut that night! All the things I had left behind were exactly in the same place. No one had touched them.
I had saved skins of the gazelles we had killed, and I sewed them together first; then I took what was left of my trousers and put them on the skins and marked out the pattern with charcoal. Then I cut up the skins and sewed with my big needle, and at the end of the day I had made a pair of skin trousers. I also covered my old shoes with gazelle skin.
When I had furnished myself with something to wear, we prepared to return to Chief Rotembo. All my hunters and Akenda-Mbani were to accompany me. Many bunches of plantain were collected; the men went hunting and killed an antelope for Rotembo, and the following morning we left, one canoe loaded with the skins and bones of the animals I had killed and with the birds I had stuffed.
After a pleasant trip down the Ogobai, we arrived at the village of Rotembo amid the firing of guns and the beating of the tomtoms.
The news quickly spread that the Oguizi had returned, and many people came flocking to our village. Canoe after canoe was to be seen coming from up or down the river all the time.
