king person
within a radius of a hundred miles and I had read all my English books.
I vented my impatience in walking, for I covered at least fifteen miles
through the jungle every day. This proceeding filled both the Belgians
and the natives with astonishment. The latter particularly could not
understand why a man walked about the country aimlessly. Usually a
native will only walk when he can move in the direction of food or
sleep. On these solitary trips I went through a country that still
abounds in buffalo. Occasionally you see an elephant. It is one thing to
watch a big tusker doing his tricks in a circus tent, but quite another
to hear him floundering through the woods, tearing off huge branches of
trees as he moves along with what seems to be an incredible speed for so
heavy an animal.

There came the glad Sunday--it was my thirteenth day at Dima--when I
heard the whistle of the steamboat. I dashed down to the beach and there
was the little forty-ton "Madeleine." I welcomed her as a long-lost
friend and this she proved to be. The second day afterwards I went
aboard and began a diverting chapter of my experience. The "Madeleine"
is a type of the veteran Congo boat. In the old days the Belgian
pioneers fought natives from its narrow deck. Despite incessant combat
with sand-banks, snags and swift currents--all these obstructions abound
in the Kasai River--she was still staunch. In command was the only
Belgian captain that I had in the Congo, and he had been on these waters
for twenty years with only one holiday in Europe during the entire time.

I occupied the alleged cabin-de-luxe, the large room that all these
boats must furnish in case an important State functionary wants to
travel. My fellow passengers were two Catholic priests and three Belgian
"agents," as the Congo factors are styled. I ate alone on the main deck
in front of my cabin, with Nelson in attendance.

Now began a journey that did not lack adventure. It was the end of the
dry season and the Kasai was lower than ever before. The channel was
almost a continuous sand-bank. We rested on one of them for a whole day.
I was now well into the domain of the hippopotamus. I am not
exaggerating when I say that the Kasai in places is alive with them. You
can shoot one of these monsters from the bridge of the river boats
almost as easily as you could pick off a sparrow from the limb of a park
tree. I got tired of watching them. The flesh of the hippopotamus is