whole village
or part of it, these chiefs are sent for and during the early evenings
they ring their iron hand bells and call out in a loud voice the message
in five minutes. The king desired of his own heart to give me peanuts
for my people. I heard the messengers delivering the word and the next
morning we had more peanuts than we could manage.

There was not a visible light anywhere in the whole town. "A chunk or
two" is always kept smouldering in the center of the house on the clay
floor. The housewife is always careful to have a handful of split dry
bamboo near, and when anyone is stung by a scorpion or snake (which
often happens) they start up a blaze and hunt for the intruder and
medicine.

When there is neither moon nor stars it is truly a land of awful
darkness, and is made more dismal by the yelping of the jackal on the
plain. The moon shines more brightly and beautifully than on Lukenga's
plain. And the beauty is enhanced by the thousands of majestic palms,
and the singing of birds with voices like the mocking bird and the
nightingale. I have sat in front of my house moonlight nights until 12
and 1 o'clock.

Every morning the "courts" and streets were swept. Men who had committed
some offense were compelled to pull weeds and sweep the streets clean.

There is a rule in all Bakuba villages that every man every day sweep
before his own door. The only littered places I observed were at the
four public entrances of the town where markets were held daily at 6
A.M., 12 noon and 5 P.M.--sugar cane, pulp, banana and plantain
peelings, and peanut shells.

When the king's drum taps the signal about 9 P.M. at the conclusion of
the sleep song there is not a sound again in the whole village.

All the natives we have met in the Kasal are, on the whole, honest. Our
private dwellings have never been locked day or night. Your pocketbook
is a sack of cowries or salt tied at the mouth with a string. But now
and then something happens. N'susa, one of the boys of my caravan,
misappropriated some cowries. I called him (in the presence of two
witnesses) in question about the matter. He acknowledged removing the
shells and innocently remarked, "You are the same as my father, and what
is his is mine."

From the great Lukenga plateau as far as the eye can look you see
villages dotted everywhere. You never find a family living alone
isolated from the village. The people live together for mutual
protection from enemies and ani