Lost in the Jungle; Narrated for Young People

by Paul B. Du Chaillu

Finally we reached the place where Remandji had directed Minsho to go. We lighted our fires, and soon after Remandji made his appearance. He looked again and again at me. His women were frightened, and did not show themselves. Happily, his majesty brought some plantains and fish with him.

I thought I had before known what musquitoes were, but I never saw the like of those we had in this spot. They certainly must have been a new kind, for their sting was like that of a bee, and very painful. Hundreds of them were buzzing around each one of us. My eyes, hands, and legs were swollen. I had a musquito-net with me, but inside of it they would get, how I could not tell. Several times I got out of the net, and when I thought I had shaken it well, and driven every one of them off, I would get under it again in the twinkle of an eye; but the musquitoes, which seemed perfectly famished, were like vultures, and would get in at the same time that I did. The Ashiras declared that they had never before seen such a place for musquitoes. Smoke and fire seemed to have no effect upon them. I never suffered such torture in my life. They beat all I had ever seen in the shape of musquitoes. The next morning I was so terribly bitten that I looked as if I had the measles or the chicken-pox.

Remandji, who had built his camp next to ours, came declaring that the people must have bewitched the place where we had slept, and off he took us to his village. After a three hours' march, we came at last, through a sudden opening in the forest, to a magnificent stream, the Rembo Apingi or Ngouyai. I stood in amazement and delight, looking at the beautiful and large river I had just discovered, and the waters of which were gliding toward the big sea, when a tremendous cheer from the Ashiras announced to the Apingi, Remandji's subjects, who had made their appearance on the opposite bank, that a spirit had come to visit them. The latter responded to the cheering, and presently a great number of exceedingly frail flat canoes and several rafts were pushed across, and soon reached our side of the river; they had come to ferry us over. The Apingi people live only on the right bank of this noble river.

I got into a very small canoe, which was managed with great skill by the Apingi boatman. I did not see how he could keep his equilibrium in the frail-looking shell.

The shouting on the Apingi side was becoming louder and louder, and when I landed the excitement was intense. "Look at the spirit!" shouted the multitude. "Look at his feet! look at his hair! look at his nose!" etc., etc.

They followed me till I was safely housed in one of the largest huts in the town, which was about twelve feet long and seven feet broad, with a piazza in front. When all my luggage was stored there was hardly room to move. I had indeed reached a strange country.

Presently Remandji came to me, followed by all the old men of his town and several chiefs of the neighboring villages. Twenty-four fowls were laid at my feet; bunches of plantains, with baskets of cassava. And Remandji, turning toward the old men, said, "I have beheld what our fathers never saw—what you and I never saw before. I bid thee welcome, O spirit! I thank your father, King Olenda," said he, turning to Minsho, "for sending this spirit to me." Then he added, "Be glad, O spirit, and eat of the things we give thee."

Whereupon, to my great astonishment, a slave was handed over to me, bound, and Remandji said, "Kill him; he is tender and fat, and you must be hungry."

I was not prepared for such a present. They thought I was a cannibal—an eater of human flesh—and there stood before me a fat negro, who during the night had been caught, for Remandji had sent word to the people of my coming, and in his forethought determined that I must have a good meal on my arrival.

Then I shook my head, spat violently on the ground, which is a great way of showing disgust, the people all the time looking at me with perfect astonishment. I made Minsho tell them that I abhorred people who ate human flesh, and that I, and those who were like me in the spirit-land, never did eat human flesh.