med apparently
of very tender, cold meat with green salad and mayonnaise. On asking
however, we hear it is the raw flesh of goat cut up small. It is
certainly the best way of eating goat's flesh, for any method of cooking
seems to extract what little juice it possesses and convert it into a
substance resembling old leather. The name is curious, for it is neither
beef nor steak, and is probably as rare in America as Irish stew is in
Ireland or Welsh rarebit in Wales.

There are some very fine canoes here, very often carved throughout their
entire length, a favourite device being a crocodile. Two or three very
large _tom-toms_. are also in the village. These instruments are carved
from a solid piece of a tree six or eight feet long, most of the
interior being extracted through a narrow slit-like aperture two or
three inches wide and running nearly the length of the tom-tom. The
result is a hollow instrument, giving one or two different notes when
struck in different parts which can be heard for many miles. In case of
war, the whole country side can be quickly aroused, but the _tom-tom_.
is also used during peace as a telegraph.

At Imese two soldiers and their future brides came on board for the
purpose of travelling to Libenge to be married, for only Commissaires of
Districts and Missionaries can legally join two into one. The send off
was quite pretty, the happy couples being pelted with flowers as they
stepped on board, while one friend--perhaps a kind of best man--threw
his cap into the river. The State encourages regular marriages,
especially among the soldiers. The wife then works in the gardens or
plantations, while her husband drills, and returns at midday and in the
evening to cook his food.

Next day we reach Dongo, a village situated on a hill perhaps 200 feet
high. After looking at flat forest for weeks, this appears a veritable
mountain and it seems quite a stiff climb up the rough path constructed
as usual only by the feet of the people who have used it. Mr. Vannini,
an Italian officer, is constructing a Post here with the aid of some ten
or fifteen soldiers. Dongo is a very large village containing perhaps
3000 people and the huts are arranged in streets running parallel to
each other with their ends towards the river. The physique of the people
is very good indeed, some of the men being more than six feet in height.
The women mostly wear copper collars, three inches high and with a
second horizontal col