The houses were not quite four feet in height. They made two little beds in each house. Four or five sticks put together made each bed, and a log made the pillow. When this was done, they roofed their beehive-like structure with large leaves, overlapping each other, to prevent the rain from coming in. In each house slept two dwarfs. Though the houses appeared all alike, the owners could tell the difference between them. After their settlement was built, the dwarfs said:—
“How much better are our shelters than those of the nkengos and of the mbouvés! but we are obliged to move away as often as they do, for we live much the same kind of life.” They then collected firewood for the night. This was easy enough, for in the big forest dead and fallen limbs of trees were lying everywhere.
After their supper they seated themselves round a log fire. They all felt happy, for they had come to a part of the forest where food was plentiful; and even if the nginas, the men of the woods, or the ngoas came, they would not eat it all. When it was bedtime, they went off one by one to their houses. They lay flat on their bellies and crawled in, for the doors of their dwellings were not more than one foot in height and not quite as wide. They started early the following morning. The men went to lay all kinds of traps and snares in the forest to trap game. The women went after food, but they found it round their settlements. All came back early.
The next afternoon was a great feast day; not only fruits, berries, and nuts were abundant, but the dwarfs had been very successful in trapping game. One came back with a big ombama, over twenty feet long; some had monkeys, which they had killed with arrows. Two wild boars and two or three animals had been trapped and caught. So there was a great feast that evening.
The following day they trapped so much game that the dwarfs said, “The bashikouay ants must have made a raid in the forest, and the animals have fled in our direction.” Big fires were lighted; and when the firewood had been reduced to charcoal, they roasted the monkeys and big pieces of boar upon it. They ate to their hearts’ content. After eating, they lay on their backs, just as the men of the woods do, and smoked wild hemp which they got from the big human beings, and felt happy. In the evening they retired under their shelter after they had collected firewood for the night.
Then, seated around their fire, some of the dwarfs said: “Our camp is not far from a village of big people. It is a long time since we have eaten plantains. Let us go and exchange game with them for bunches of plantains, for the plantains taste so much better than all the nuts and fruits we find in the forest.”
So they went to a village of a tribe which lived in that part of the forest, and took several monkeys and pieces of wild boar. They were well received and welcomed by the big people, among whom they had many friends, and remained in their village, enjoying the cooked plantains that were served to them. When they returned, they took back with them as many bunches of plantains as they could carry.
Thus the dwarfs spend their lives year after year.
CHAPTER XLIX
ADVENTURES OF A NKENGO AND A NSHIEGO
Before closing this volume I will give the story of two remarkable creatures which belonged to the “World of the Great Forest,” a nshiego and a nkengo. These two were made captive, and after many adventures left their gloomy home, went to the country of the white man, where one of them died and the other learned many things which excited great interest, and sent many observers home with food for thought.