I answered: "All right, Rogala; we will camp where you say."
Accordingly we made camp here and passed the night. The following afternoon we entered a narrow river and left the large Ogobai. We had not been two hours on our way up the river when Ndova began to utter loud and peculiar sounds.
"Ndova is calling the monkeys to come to him," said Rogala. "If they come we shall have monkey meat for our evening meal."
As he spoke, he grinned with delight; but there were no monkeys within the sound of Ndova's voice.
After a while, however, the call of Ndova was answered by a troop of monkeys, and they seemed to have quite a conversation together, though the voices of the monkeys did not seem to come nearer.
"The monkeys are trying to make Ndova come to them," Rogala said.
Then came a pause, and the forest became still again. But soon Rogala's quick ears heard the noise made by the shaking of the branches of trees. The monkeys were travelling towards us, leaping from branch to branch, bending them by their weight as they alighted upon them.
Ndova was making an awful noise and was very excited. The monkeys answered him, and he kept on calling them. We were paddling silently along the banks of the river, and as soon as we saw the monkeys on a tree above our canoe we stopped. They were many in number, and looked at Ndova without uttering a sound, they seemed so astonished. We raised our guns and aimed at the two biggest white-nosed ones and fired. One fell into our canoe, the other dropped dead by the shore. The rest scuttled away in a trice.
"Good for you, Ndova," I said to him.
Ndova was in a great state of excitement. Rogala, holding his cord, took him towards the two dead monkeys. When he came near them he uttered other sounds, quite unlike those he had made when he called the monkeys to us. What he meant neither Rogala nor I could tell. But I said to myself: "Rotembo is right. Ndova will be the cause of our having food and we shall feed often on monkey meat. We shall not starve as long as Ndova is with us. Great, indeed, is the gift of Chief Rotembo!"
A few miles further on we landed. In a short time we were seated by a bright fire, and when it had been reduced to a great mass of charcoal we roasted one of the monkeys and with our roasted plantains made a delicious meal. Andekko fed on some of the bones, and Ndova on a ripe plantain.
At dawn of day we left our encampment. About two hours afterwards we came upon three little houses surrounded by plantain trees. The houses were in a dilapidated state and had been abandoned. The large bunches of plantain that were hanging from the trees were untouched, for the elephants and the big apes, the "men of the woods," had not found the plantation.
Some time before we had reached the place Rogala's face had become uneasy. He took to the opposite bank of the river. I could see fear on his countenance. He paddled faster than ever, and his mind seemed quite relieved when we had left the spot far behind us. Then he stopped, tied the canoe to a tree to rest a while, and said: "Two dry seasons ago there lived on the plantation we have passed a man by the name of Igala. His wife was called Yienoo. Both were sorcerers, and had been so for a long time, though the people did not know it. Near them was a village. One day one of the men of the village was trampled to death by a bull elephant, and there was great sorrow among the people. The day after a leopard came into the village at night and carried away a woman. The people began to think it was strange that those two deaths should occur one immediately after the other, and they became much alarmed, and believed that witchcraft was the cause of the trouble, but no one suspected who the sorcerers were. Some time afterwards a man disappeared and never came back. After this the people were so much excited that they sent a messenger to a celebrated 'medicine man' who was known all over the country for his skill in discovering sorcerers. They promised to pay him two slaves if he would come. The name of this great 'ooganga,' or medicine man, was Makoonga; he is living now. He sent word by the messenger that he would come after his return from another village where he was going to find out who had killed by witchcraft the brother of the chief.
"There was great joy in the village when the messenger brought back word that Makoonga was coming. Three days after the return of the messenger another man disappeared, and remains of his body were discovered, showing that he had been devoured by a leopard. Then all the people said that some one among them had changed his shape and turned into a leopard, that he had eaten up the three persons who had disappeared, and had also taken the shape of an elephant and trodden upon the man who had been killed in that way.
"There was no more sleep in the village. The people danced all night, and called upon the spirits of their ancestors to protect them from witchcraft. They made invocation to their idol and to the spirits Mburu and Abambo.
"Then Makoonga came, and the following day the people met, and he drank the 'mboundou' before them, and after drinking it he became possessed of the power of divination, and told them that Igala and Yienoo through witchcraft had taken the shape of leopards and eaten up the three people, and that Igala had taken the shape of an elephant and trampled the man.
"There was a great uproar amongst the people when they heard this. They went to the home of Igala and Yienoo and brought them to the village. They had to drink the 'mboundou' to prove their innocence in the presence of all the people. Makoonga made the potation, drank part of it first, and then handed the bowl to Igala and Yienoo. They had hardly tasted it when they fell on the ground. That was the proof that they were guilty, and the people surrounded them and cut their bodies into a hundred pieces and then threw them into the river. Oh, Oguizi," exclaimed Rogala, in concluding his story, "often witchcraft comes into people without their wishing it and against their will."
After this narrative he untied our canoe and we continued our ascent of the river. After a long pull he suddenly headed our canoe towards the shore, and after passing under the branches of trees that almost touched the water we came to a path which no one coming up or down the river could detect. This path led to Rogala's place. Ndova uttered grunt-like sounds of satisfaction; Andekko barked to show his joy. They knew they had come home; they were well acquainted with this spot.
CHAPTER IV
THE HOME OF ROGALA – HIS HUNTING-TROPHIES – A WEIRD SPOT – ASPECT OF THE SURROUNDING FOREST – SHINSHOOKO AND ALAPAI – LEOPARDS IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
After a few minutes' walk we came to a grove of plantain trees, and there saw the home of Rogala, which was composed of four small structures. The dwelling-house had a veranda in front. It was built of bark with a roof thatched with palm leaves, and was about eighteen feet long and twelve wide. It had only one door.
Under the veranda hung the tails of nearly all the elephants he had killed. I counted ninety-five of them. Some of the tails he had got went to Chief Rotembo. All along the roof were skulls of antelopes with the graceful spiral horns, two skulls of male gorillas, several skulls of nshiegos or chimpanzees, of wild boars, of buffaloes, of leopards and other wild animals.
Four elephant skulls stood at each corner of the house. These elephants had been killed near the plantations. Rogala was the greatest elephant hunter of his day.
One building was composed of a single roof merely, under which cooking was done. Here also people were received, and the space it covered was the dining-room.
A small house near by was for Mburu, a spirit, who sometimes came to rest there during the night. His bed lay on the ground, and was composed of dry leaves covered with a mat. His pillow was a smooth round piece of wood. In the fourth small house was the idol. There were also a chicken-coop and a goat-house.
"We have chosen this spot," said Rogala, "because at a certain time of the year the country is full of elephants. They come to eat the leaves of a tree that is more plentiful around here than in other parts of the forest."
A little further on I saw several other small houses; those belonged to Shinshooko and Alapai.
The place was entirely deserted, for all the people had gone into the forest, – the men to cut trees for new plantations, and the women to attend to the crops that had been planted and bring back bunches of plantain or cassava roots.
What