each day.

The people and villages now change much in appearance for the huts are
shaped like beehives and are made of frameworks of wood covered with
grass. The entrance is only about three feet high and the dome of the
roof perhaps four times that height. In some of them a kind of platform
is erected which seems to be an attempt to make a two storey building of
the hut. The women are here either quite nude or wear a small piece of
cloth or grass below the waist; the men however all have a loin cloth.
All the people seem to be of fine physique and the proportion of
children is abnormally high. The first night we stop at a trading post
of the Dutch Company on the French side of the river and are hospitably
received by the agents there.

Next day we reach the Catholic Mission of Sainte Famille also on French
territory. The Fathers have laid out a large plantation and farm;
horses, cattle, sheep, goats and poultry all doing well. Indeed modern
American ploughs and carts give the farm quite a home-like appearance.
Maize, oranges, bananas, pineapples and many vegetables are here in
abundance. Sleeping Sickness is not known, which immunity is attributed
by the priests to the fact that the natives have plenty of fresh meat
and eat little kwanga. Apparently the disease is due to a bacillus. It
is however, at least possible that the new diet of the civilised native
may be a predisposing factor. The savage is naturally carnivorous and
before the advent of the white man, had little to eat but animal flesh.
Now his chief article of diet in the western parts of the Congo is
kwanga, which consists chiefly of starch, and he has only a little meat
and fish. Along the Congo where the native is civilised, there is much
sleeping sickness, but along the Ubangi where he is more savage, there
is practically none. The Fathers give us some spirits distilled from the
papye and pineapple which are very good and beer made from maize which
is not. They then show us round the grounds and before we leave load us
with eggs and fresh vegetables which are very acceptable. At sunset we
tie up to the bank and make a camp. It is wonderful how quickly the
grass is cut down, the tents erected, fires lighted and dinner cooked,
for when the native knows he has to perform a certain definite task, he
works hard, so that he can eat his dinner and get to sleep as soon as
possible. Chikaia apparently has a fine sense of satire or humour. A
table was broken and