en's terror, and he
looked with disgust at the scene before him, not entirely comprehending.
Those creatures, so filthy, so animal-like, created in his mind such
abhorrence that he forgot to make allowances for the fact that they were
penned like swine, and that perchance in their own native state, free in
their own villages, they might be cleaner and less revolting. He could not
hear the dismal cry of the "Congo niggers," who of all people on the earth
are the most miserable, the most abused, the most sorrow-stricken, the
most dumb. He did not know that he was looking at one of the filthy acts
in the great drama that a hundred years hence will be read with horror by
a more enlightened world.

They turned from the degrading sight and went back to Verhaeren's house
for dinner.

CHAPTER VIII

THE VOICE OF THE CONGO FOREST

Just after daybreak next morning the expedition started.

Berselius, Adams, the gun-bearers and Felix headed the line; a long way
after came the porters and their loads, shepherded by half a dozen
soldiers of the state specially hired for the business.

Before they had gone a mile on their route the sun was blazing strongly,
sharp bird-calls came from the trees, and from the porters tramping under
their loads a hum like the hum of an awakened beehive. These people will
talk and chatter when the sun rises; club them, or threaten them, or load
them with burdens as much as you please, the old instinct of the birds and
beasts remains.

At first the way led through cassava and manioc fields and past clumps of
palms; then, all at once, and like plunging under a green veil or into the
heart of a green wave, they entered the forest.

The night chill was just leaving the forest, the great green gloom,
festooned with fantastic rope-like tendrils, was drinking the sunlight
with a million tongues; you could hear the rustle and snap of branches
straightening themselves and sighing toward heaven after the long, damp,
chilly night. The tropical forest at daybreak flings its arms up to the
sun as if to embrace him, and all the teeming life it holds gives tongue.
Flights of coloured and extraordinary birds rise like smoke wreaths from
the steaming leaves, and the drone of a million, million insects from the
sonorous depths comes like the sound of life in ferment.

The river lay a few miles to their left, and faintly from it, muffled by
the trees, they could hear the shrill whistling of the river steamb