500 SINGULAR CAUSE FOR FEAR. CHAPTER XXVI. Bible-reading. The Negroes are frightened and run away.-The Ceremony of Bongo.-Its Importance.-Curious Phase of African Slavery.-Preparations to ascend the River.-Apingi Villages.-Fetiches.-Superstitions.-Spiders.-Curious Manner of catching their Prey.-New Animals.-Capsized.—Putrid Corpse in a Village.-Curious Manner of Burial.-Leave the River.-The Region beyond. Return to Remandgi's Town.-Explore the Mountains.-The Isogo.-Beyond the Isogo.-Ultima Thule.-My Shoes give out.-Starvation.-Great Suffering. Shoot a Gorilla.-Illness.-Home-sick.-The Return to the Sea-shore.Etita: a very singular Disease.—The Remedy.-Heavy Rains.--An uncomfortable Night.-Fierce Attack of Bashikouay Ants.-Difference of Seasons.-Arrival in Biagano.-Close. December 19th was Sunday by my account. I sat in my hut and read the Bible, and a great crowd came around and watched me with wondering eyes. I explained to them that when I read it it was as though God talked with me. Then, to gratify them, I read aloud, and afterward tried to explain to them something of the teachings of Christ. Presently I let the leaves of the book slip through my hands to show them how many there were. To my great surprise, the little noise I thus made seemed to frighten them very much. In an instant the whole crowd, Remandji and all, had disappeared, with symptoms of the greatest terror. My first effort to speak to them the Word of God seemed to meet with little success. By-and-by I persuaded some to come back, and they told me. that the noise I made was like that made by their spirit. They seemed to think that I had some communication with Ococoo, who is their chief spirit. To-day many people returned to their villages disappointed that I did not make for them cloth, copper, and iron, which nothing will convince them that I can not make in great profusion by a mere effort of the will. On the 20th, as I was speaking with Remandji, a man came and laid his hands on the chief's head. He said, "Father, I want to serve you. I choose you for my master, and will never return to my old master." This ceremony is called bongo, and is a curious phase of Afri THE CEREMONY OF BONGO. 501 When a can slavery. It obtains more or less in all the tribes. slave gets hard treatment from his master, and has reason to be dissatisfied, he slips off to another village and chooses for himself a new master. This man is obliged to accept and protect him. He can not refuse. Nor is any "palaver" made on this account. No one, for instance, could hold Remandji responsible for this act. He may even visit immediately the village from which the slave has run away; only the slave himself must not go back thither, else he exposes himself to be reclaimed. The bongo is given always to a person of another village, and always to one of another family or clan in the same tribe. The technical term is to "beat bongo," in allusion to the laying on of hands. This singular custom has a marked influence on the condition of the slaves, who have always open to them this legitimate and toleraably easy avenue of escape from tyranny. It prevents families being separated, in particular, for nothing will make a slave leave his master so quickly as to have his wife sold away from him. To-day canoes were being procured for an ascent of the river. They got quite a little fleet together for me; but all are small, and so easily capsized that navigation is by no means comfortable to me, who can scarce swim a stroke. However, there was no help for it, so I prepared for accidents by tying my compass to a cord fastened about my neck, then tied my gun fast by a long rope to the canoe, which would float in any case, and took, besides this, only a little box containing a change of clothes and two pairs of shoes (the most necessary article hereabouts to the traveler). Then Remandji, myself, and a paddler got in and started, follow.. ed by the fleet. The canoes are quite flat in the bottom, sit almost entirely above water, and are very well designed to stem the swift current of this river, which runs, at this time of the year, at the rate of four or five miles per hour. Before we started necessity compelled me to spend a morning at the river-side washing my clothes. The negroes have so little idea of even the commonest cleanliness, that they never wash their scanty garments. When I make a considerable stay with any tribe I generally manage to teach some woman how to wash. It is a disagreeable labor, which I can not bear. I would much rather cook, though that generally falls to some one else. We ascended the river at very slow speed, passing the shores. at the rate of about two or three miles the hour. The people sang as they paddled. I sat very still and very uncomfortably in the bottom of the boat. We passed several villages in about three hours after starting. These Apingi villages are not as pretty to look upon as those of the Ashira. In the latter I find always a veranda next the house, where the cooking is done; while in the Apingi house the same room has to serve as store-room, bed-room, and kitchen. The Apingi houses are built of bark, as the Ashira, and the roof is made of large leaves. There is generally one larger house in the village, which belongs to the chief. The villages have no high fence of pickets, which is an evidence that the people are not warlike. We landed at the village of Agoby, a chief I had seen before. He gave me some fowls, but complained that the leopards had caten up all his goats. I saw here the largest ashangou-tree I ever saw. It was hung full of the olive-shaped fruit. This is larger than our olives, quite fleshy, and, when ripe, of a dark red color. This tree, and a number of others, Agoby told me had been planted by his grandfather, which shows that property has been respected among these people for at least two or three generations. Most of these villages are surrounded by groves of these trees. The fruit is boiled, and has then an agreeable acidity both pleasant and wholesome in this climate.* I find that the superstitions of this people are as great as those of the tribes nearer the sea. They hold that death is caused by witchcraft; but yet they do not remove after every death as do the Camma, Shekiani, Bakalai, and the other tribes. Among the sea-shore tribes the Apingi have great repute as wizards, and Apingi-land is the land of aniemba, where any one may learn to become a powerful sorcerer. Consequently, the Apingi fetiches are very highly valued by the coast tribes, especially those professing to remove barrenness. I had special instructions from a number of childless fathers in my town on the sea-shore to bring them some Apingi mondas, but the price proved too high for my means and my good-nature, and I did not, either, care to give such indorsement to their superstitious nonsense. any * In the forests near the sea-shore is found a tree belonging to the same family as the ashangou, and which is there called the ashafou. But the fruit of this is less fleshy and more acid than that of the ashangou, and, when ripe, is of a rosy hue. In the evening we had a dance, and Agoby, bent on the utmost civility, sent some women to dance for my especial delectation. I quickly sent them back, preferring to take my amusements with the mass. The African dances are much alike every where, and had long ceased to amuse me. As I was walking through the forest on a hunt the next day, I was bitten by one of the immense yellow-spotted spiders which are so numerous in all the African woods and openings, and in the huts of the natives as well. Some of the spiders of this country grow to an immense size. I have frequently seen them with. a body as large as a sparrow's egg. The house-spider, which lives chiefly on flies and roaches, is mostly of a dull gray, which conceals its approach in the gloom of the hut. One species of house-spider does not make a web for its prey, so far as I have been able to discover. It conceals itself during the day in the crevices of the hut, and preys only by night. At the approach of evening, the roaches, which so swarm in every African hut, come forth to act their part of scavengers. Then, by the dim light of a torch, and half smothered with the heat, I have, for hours at a time, watched the motions of this spider. It comes out very carefully from its lair, and, having got a good station, remains perfectly rigid and motionless often for half an hour, waiting for some unlucky roach to pass by. At last the roach rushes past. In an instant the spider has pounced upon him. Now ensues a tug and battle which is of the greatest interest, and which is often prolonged for half an hour. The great African roach grows to the size of an almost-grown mouse, and is a strong and somewhat formidable animal to the spider. The latter fastens on its back, and, to prevent being borne off, clings with two of his hairy legs to the floor or sides. All the roach's endeavors are to escape. He tugs and jerks, and often succeeds in dragging his enemy off for some distance. Then the spider succeeds in catching hold with his feet again, and once more the struggle is renewed. All this time, however, the spider is sucking away at the juices of the roach, and so presently the struggles grow weaker and weaker, and the poor roach succumbs; whereupon his enemy drags off the body to some corner, where it can be finished at leisure. Another very large house-spider spins a web, and catches its prey of flies and roaches as ours do. But the largest and most numerous species are found in the 504 A REMARKABLY SMALL SQUIRREL. forest. The large black and yellow spotted one by which I was bitten spins its web in every wood. The web is a bright yellow, like the same color in the spider's body. It is generally placed in an open space between two shrubs, and is often three feet in diameter. The thread is very coarse, and so strong that when, walking rapidly, I have inadvertently run against such a web, I have felt a very perceptible resistance to my progress. The bite of this insect is very painful, but not poisonous. The pain, which is like running a red-hot needle into the flesh, is soon over, and the wound heals up immediately. I have been several times bitten by this spider. One or two species have very short legs, and flat, oval bodies, surrounded by pointed spurs, looking, when taken from their webs, more like bugs than veritable spiders. All the wood-spiders use webs to entangle their prey. They are of many colors; but none are poisonous to man, so far as I have been able to discover, by the personal trial of being bitten, or by the report of the natives. Also, during my stay at Agoby's village, I shot two very re |