hese
commodities directly to the coast, but by the law of the land (which
means the law of the strongest, for they are absolute savages) are
obliged to deliver their goods to the care of the tribe next to them;
these pass them on to the next tribe; and so on they go from tribe to
tribe till they reach the coast, where they are sold by the tribe there.
The price obtained, which usually consists of guns, powder and shot,
looking-glasses, cloth, and sundry other articles and trinkets useful to
men in a savage state, is returned to the owners in the far interior
through the same channel; but as each tribe deducts a percentage for its
trouble, the price dwindles down as it goes, until a mere trifle,
sometimes nothing at all, remains to be handed over to the unfortunate
people of the tribe who originally sent off the goods for sale. Of
course, such a system almost paralyses trade. But the intermediate
tribes between the coast and the interior being the gainers by this
system, are exceedingly jealous of anything like an attempt to carry on
direct trade. They are ready to go to war with the tribes of the
interior, should they attempt it, and they throw all the opposition they
can in the way of the few white men who ever penetrate the interior for
such a purpose.

It will thus be seen that our travels would be hindered very much, if
not stopped altogether, and ourselves be regarded with jealousy, or
perhaps murdered, if our motives in going inland were not fully and
satisfactorily explained to the different tribes as we passed through
their lands. And we therefore proposed to overcome the difficulty by
taking a native guide with us from the tribe with which we should chance
to be residing when obliged to separate from the Portuguese trader.

We had now reached this point. The day before that on which we encamped
in the woods, as above related, we arrived at a native village, and had
been received kindly by the king. Almost immediately after our arrival
we heard so many stories about gorillas that I felt persuaded we should
fall in with one if we went a-hunting, and being exceedingly anxious to
add one to my collection of animals--for I had a small museum at home--I
prevailed on Jack and Peterkin to go one day's journey into the bush to
look for them. They laughed very much at me indeed, and said that we
were still very far away from the gorilla country; but I had read in
some work on Africa a remark to the effect that th