em liberty in pillage
and rape. Eh! but the Eater-of-Men was a mighty chief! and of his name
they boasted to every man.

With foresight he had demanded twice as many men as he needed, knowing
that the panic-stricken chief would round up the halt, the blind, and the
sick. By an hour after the stipulated time they were assembled in the
village, a motley crew. Those of the most powerful physique he selected to
man the soldiers' canoes, and the next in competency he allotted to the
baggage canoes.

They started immediately. They made about two and a half miles an hour,
for although the river was swollen it was sluggish and slow streamed,
tortuous. Each canoe load of soldiers was made responsible for the
paddlers and the speed was set by zu Pfeiffer in a large canoe with
Sakamata as guide. Never had those paddlers driven canoes so speedily and
persistently. At sundown they halted in a convenient bend where there was
no village near; pickets were set on the bank and no other man allowed to
land, no lights and no talking. They were ordered to rest.

At the first glint of the moon they started again. The canoes were hauled
by the aid of the soldiers over the slight rapids which divided the river
into pools in the dry season. Throughout the night the misty forest and
swamp slipped by to the perpetual rhythm of the paddles. About the hour of
the monkey a hippopotamus charged the flotilla and upset two boats. Zu
Pfeiffer forbade any shooting, nor would he permit the expedition a
moment's delay to pick up the occupants. Just as they heard the distant
crowing of cocks from the village for which they were bound, four paddlers
collapsed. The soldiers, acting on their own initiative, threw them
overboard to swim if they could, and took the paddles themselves.
Afterwards they were thrashed for disobedience to orders in having given a
possible chance for one of the men to escape to warn the Wongolo. At an
hour after sunrise they arrived at the village. The majority of the
paddlers were so exhausted that they dropped in the canoes and had to be
thrown ashore, where they lay inert, their backs, bloody with the urgent
bayonet pricks, caking in the sun.

Beyond this point the river was not navigable, but the village was upon
the Wongolo border and within two days or fifteen hours' continuous march
of MFunya MPopo's (as zu Pfeiffer knew it). Zu Pfeiffer adopted the same
tactics to procure porters. But to the chief, in case he should requir