tinuous state of receptivity when it comes
to food. Nowhere in the world have I seen people who ate so much. I have
offered the leavings of a meal to a savage just after he had apparently
gorged himself and he "wolfed" it as if he were famished. The invariable
custom in the Congo is to have one huge meal a day. On this occasion
every member of the family consumes all the edibles in sight. Then the
crowd lays off until the following day. All food offered in the meantime
by way of gratuity or otherwise is devoured on the spot.

In connection with the _chikwanga_ is an interesting fact. The Congo
natives all die young--I only saw a dozen old men--because they are
insufficiently nourished. The _chikwanga_ is filling but not fattening.
This is why sleeping sickness takes such dreadful toll. From an
estimated population of 30,000,000 in Stanley's day the indigenes have
dwindled to less than one-third this number. Meat is a luxury. Although
the natives have chickens in abundance they seldom eat one for the
reason that it is more profitable to sell them to the white man.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the Congo native suffers from
ailments. Unlike the average small boy of civilization, he delights
in taking medicine. I suppose that he regards it as just another form of
food. You hear many amusing stories in connection with medicinal
articles. When you give a savage a dozen effective pills, for example,
and tell him to take one every night, he usually swallows them all at
one time and then he wonders why the results are disastrous. A sorcerer
in the Upper Congo region once obtained what was widely acclaimed as
miraculous results from a red substance that he got out of a tin. It
developed that he had stolen a can of potted beef and was using it as
"medicine."

[Illustration: CENTRAL AFRICAN PYGMIES]

Stanleyville was called the center of the old Arab slave trade. While
the odious traffic has long ceased to exist, you occasionally meet an
old native who bears the scars of battle with the marauders and who can
tell harrowing tales of the cruelties they inflicted.

The slave raiders began their operations in the Congo in 1877, the same
year in which Stanley made his historic march across Africa from
Zanzibar to the north of the Congo. It was the great explorer who
unconsciously blazed the way for the man-hunters. They followed him down
the Lualaba River as far as Stanley Falls and discovered what was to
them a real huma