five cents a bunch of
one hundred. It is about the only cheap thing in the Congo except
servants.

[Illustration: A NATIVE MARKET AT KINDU]

Not all my fellow passengers were desirable companions. At Bukana five
naked savages, all chained together by the neck, were brought aboard in
charge of three native soldiers. When I asked the captain who and what
they were he replied, "They are cannibals. They ate two of their fellow
tribesmen back in the jungle last week and they are going down the river
to be tried." These were the first eaters of human flesh that I saw in
the Congo. One conspicuous detail was their teeth which were all filed
down to sharp points. I later discovered that these wolf teeth, as they
might be called, are common to all the Congo cannibals. The punishment
for cannibalism is death, although every native, whatever his offence,
is given a trial by the Belgian authorities.

So far as employing the white man as an article of diet is concerned,
cannibalism has ceased in the Congo. Some of the tribes, however, still
regard the flesh of their own kind as the last word in edibles. The
practice must be carried on in secret. To have partaken of the human
body has long been regarded as an act which endows the consumer with
almost supernatural powers. The cannibal has always justified his
procedure in a characteristic way. When the early explorers and
missionaries protested against the barbarous performance they were
invariably met with this reply, "You eat fowl and goats and we eat men.
What is the difference?" There seems to have been a particular lure in
what the native designated as "food that once talked."

In the days when cannibalism was rampant, the liver of the white man was
looked upon as a special delicacy for the reason that it was supposed to
transmit the knowledge and courage of its former owner. There was also a
tradition that once having eaten the heart of the white, no harm could
come to the barbarian who performed this amiable act. Although these
odious practices have practically ceased except in isolated instances,
the Congo native, in boasting of his strength, constantly speaks of his
liver, and not of his heart.

It was on the Lualaba, after the boat had tied up for the night, that I
caught the first whisper of the jungle. In Africa Nature is in her
frankest mood but she expresses herself in subdued tones. All my life I
had read of the witchery of these equatorial places, but no descript