ted on a slope in the midst of dense forest. This is protected on
all sides by a strong stockade twelve feet high for leopards abound and
when game is difficult to find do not hesitate to enter villages and
carry off people. Here we halt for lunch and then on again through the
forest full of cuckoo pheasants. These are not much more difficult to
shoot than hand reared birds at home although they fly higher to clear
the tall trees. They do not, however, appear to travel very quickly but
this may be a delusion as it is difficult to judge distance in Africa.
No other game birds come within range. Late in the afternoon we reach
Bogosi, a large clean and well arranged village. The Chief is a pleasant
fellow perfectly willing to sell us food for our party; and monkeys,
tortoises or anything else we may desire for ourselves. Here we change
all our paddlers the present ones going back to their villages. As the
tribe is at war with one higher up the river, Mr. Van Luttens thought it
might be difficult to obtain paddlers here and so came himself. With his
aid, however, the difficulty vanished for he arranged with the Chief
that the paddlers who took us to Djabir should not be called upon to do
any more work for the State for nine months. That is to say that the
enforced forty hours a month would work out at six or seven days
paddling in nine months and as each man was liberally paid in cloth no
one could possibly say that he was used hardly. Having bathed in the
swiftly running river we dined in the enclosure which did duty as the
Council Chamber and then thoroughly tired turned in early.

It was not until 9 a.m. in the morning that we could make a start for
all the baggage had to be fitted into the canoes and the paddlers
arranged in their places. The first day with new crews is always a
trouble but this is never repeated for the native has a good memory and
every bale, bag, gun and even small articles like books are taken from
the canoes each evening and put back in identically the same place in
the morning. This is remarkable when one thinks that some hundreds of
separate articles have to be placed in one of seven or eight different
canoes in one particular place.

The river is heavily in flood for this is the end of the wet season and
the current is very strong indeed. Soon we come to the first rapid and
one of the men drops his pole overboard at the critical moment. The
other two, however, hold the canoe up by pressing again