Lost in the Jungle; Narrated for Young People

by Paul B. Du Chaillu

Then the king continued: "We know that writing talks; write to us, therefore, a letter to prove to your friends, if you do not come back, that we have not hurt you; so that when a vessel from the white-man country comes, we can show your letter to the white men." These poor people had an idea that every white man must know me like they knew me.

Finally, when they saw I was bound to go once more to the jungle, they gave me up, all exclaiming in accents of wonder, "Ottangani angani (man of the white men), what is the matter with you that you have no fear? God gave you the heart of a leopard; you were born without fear!"

Just as I was making the final preparations for my departure, a great trial came upon me. Quengueza, who had accompanied me to the coast, became dangerously ill. There were murmurs among the up-river people.

I began to despair of his life. All the medicine I gave him seemed for a while to do him no good, and he became thinner and thinner every day, till at last he looked almost like a skeleton.

How anxious I felt! Was my great and beloved African friend to die? What would the people say? for I had brought him down from his country. They would surely say that I had killed their king. I could not make out what would be the end if so great a misfortune was to happen. The murmurs of the people, which had already began, caused me sad forebodings of the future.

But there was still a bright spot.

Quengueza knew that, even if I could, I would not make him ill; he knew I loved him too well, and every day he would declare that whoever said that I had made him ill was a liar. And one morning I heard him protest that the man who would say that his friend Chally had made him ill was a wizard. Of course, after such talk, the people took good care to keep their tongues quiet.

Finally he got better and better, and became stronger. What a load of anxiety was removed from my mind!

I felt that I must go now; the rainy season was coming on. Quengueza was not strong enough; besides, he wanted to remain, for he had business to transact with some of the sea-shore chiefs after he was well enough to go about.

So Quengueza called one of his nephews of the name of Rapero, and as these people do not write, he gave him "his mouth;" that is to say, he sent word to his brother, or, as I discovered after, to his nephew, who reigned in his stead in Goumbi, to give me as many people as I wanted; and he ordered that his nephew Adouma must be the chief of the party who were to accompany me in the Ashira country, and to take me to Olenda, the king of that people.