y from the cold, and later
from the sun, fed her, bathed her, forced medicine down her throat,
and raced her up and down the spar deck. Consequently we all knew
Fanny, and it was a great shock when from the custom-house I saw her
running around the blazing parade ground, her eyes filled with fear
and "lost dog" written all over her, from her drooping tongue to her
drooping tail. Captain Burton and I called "Fanny," and, not seeking
suicide for ourselves, sent half a dozen black boys to catch her.
But Fanny never liked her black uncles; on the steamer the Kroo boys
learned to give her the length of her chain, and so we were forced
to plunge to her rescue into the valley of heat. Perhaps she thought
we were again going to lock her up on the steamer, or perhaps that
it was a friendly game, for she ran from us as fast as from the
black boys. In Matadi no one ever had crossed the parade ground
except at a funeral march, and the spectacle of two large white
men playing tag with a small fox-terrier attracted an immense
audience. The officials and clerks left work and peered between the
iron-barred windows, the "prisoners" in chains ceased breaking rock
and stared dumbly from the barracks, the black "sentries" shrieked
and gesticulated, the naked bush boys, in from a long caravan
journey, rose from the side of their burdens and commented upon our
manoeuvres in gloomy, guttural tones. I suspect they thought we
wanted Fanny for "chop." Finally Fanny ran into the legs of a German
trader, who grabbed her by the neck and held her up to us.

"You want him? Hey?" he shouted.

"Ay, man," gasped Burton, now quite purple, "did you think we were
trying to amuse the dog?"

I made a leash of my belt, and the captain returned to the ship
dragging his prisoner after him. An hour later I met the youthful
missionary leading Fanny by a rope.

"I must tell you about Fanny," he cried. "After I took her to the
Mission I forgot to tie her up--as I suppose I should have done--and
she ran away. But, would you believe it, she found her way straight
back to the ship. Was it not intelligent of her?"

I was too far gone with apoplexy, heat prostration, and sunstroke to
make any answer, at least one that I could make to a missionary.

The next morning Fanny, the young missionary, and I left for
Leopoldville on the railroad. It is a narrow-gauge railroad built
near Matadi through the solid rock and later twisting and turning so
often that at many pl