If is however, necessary to arrange them and inject very
soon after they are dead for if rigor mortis once sets in, it is
impossible to alter the position assumed by the head and wings. There
were great numbers of beautiful birds in the plantation and it was easy
to obtain over a dozen different specimens in less than an hour[3].
Red-legged partridges are also found here in the rice, but as in Europe
this variety will not rise and one may walk all day hearing the familiar
call on all sides and only obtain one or two shots.

On October 19th I had my first attack of fever, which was not severe and
soon yielded to phenacetin. It was however, rather a disappointment for
I had taken five grains of quinine regularly every day since arriving in
the Congo. The fever ran the same course that it used to do in India ten
years ago but as it only once appeared in England during that period, I
hoped it had gone for ever. Hundreds of mosquitoes hummed around with
the ambitious idea presumably of carrying the germs to some other
unfortunate.

[Illustration: THE RIVER NEAR BANZYVILLE.]

As we shall now leave the French frontier and travel altogether in State
territory we send the Senegalese escort down the river back to their
station at Mobaie. The sergeant who was in charge was a most responsible
man and was evidently held in great respect by the Chiefs of the French
villages through which we passed. One day a Chief was greatly
disturbed because two men from his village had migrated into State
territory. Although this is against the law it is apparently not a very
unusual occurrence. Generally these emigrants have committed some crime
and are fleeing from justice. One Chief, however, at Banzyville stated
he had left the State territory because he objected to working rubber
and had returned because he objected still more to paying the tax in the
French Congo. It is impossible indeed to say which side gains by this
emigration but it is very evident that it is not altogether one-sided
and not great enough to affect seriously the size of the population of
either the French or Free State Congo.

In Yakoma the people are paid chiefly by beads and salt and it is
interesting to watch the long string of workers filing to the office of
the Chef du Poste on Saturday, each one carrying a plate, a tin can or
some other receptacle in which to receive his wages.

On October 22nd we decide to pack up and move on. The skins of the
larger birds the