ut produce no result. The whole company still squatted, eating
and jabbering away, indifferent to every other sound. The head man would
be called for by Kouaga. "Why are your men not ready? Know you not that
the son of the great Naya is with us?" With a deprecatory smile the
head-man would make some excuse. He had hurt his foot, or had rheumatism,
and therefore he, and consequently his men, would be compelled to rest
that day. He would then be warned that if not ready to march in five
minutes, he would be carried captive into Mo for the Great White Queen
herself to deal with. In five minutes he would return to Kouaga, saying
that if the Grand Vizier would only give the men a little more salt with
their "chop" (food) that evening, they would march.

Kouaga would then become furious, soundly rating everybody, and declare
that the Naya herself should deal with the whole lot as mutineers;
whereupon, seeing all excuses for further halt unavailing, loads would
be taken up, and within a few moments the whole string of half-clad
natives would go laughing and singing on the forward path.

The first belt of forest passed we entered a vast level land covered with
scrub, which Omar informed me was the border of the Debendu territory.
Proceeding down a wide valley we came at length to the first inhabited
region. Every three or four miles we passed through a native
village--usually a single street of thirty or forty houses. Each house
consisted, as a rule, of three or four small sheds, facing inwards, and
forming a tiny courtyard. The huts were on built-up platforms, with hard
walls of mud, and roofs thatched with palm-leaves, while the front steps
were faced with a kind of red cement. In the middle of each centre of
habitation we found a tree with seats around it formed of untrimmed logs,
on which the elders and head-men of the village would sit, smoke, and
gravely discuss events. As we left each village to plunge boldly onward
through the bush we would pass the village fetish ground, well defined by
the decaying bodies of lizards and birds, a grinning human skull or two,
broken pots and pieces of rag fluttering in the wind, all offered as
propitiation to the presiding demon of the place, while away in the bush,
behind the houses, we saw the giant leaves of the plantain groves that
yielded the staple food of this primitive people.

Deeper and deeper we proceeded until we came into regular forest scenery,
where day after day we push