meant bed.
Seizing a likely looking bale, the boys unlace it, and find a part of a
tent, and a second attempt brings to light another part of a tent. It is
now growing dark and a light is necessary, but in which of these seventy
odd cases is the lamp? Not knowing the native mind, I explain that it is
necessary to hurry and find the bed before dark. This evidently conveys
no meaning at all to the boys, for in the first place it was not their
bed and so it mattered nothing to them, and in the second, they had
never hurried before in their lives, and could not do so now, even if
they wished. Lacing the first bales up slowly and deliberately, they
open another and find a canvas bath and washhandstand. These are at any
rate useful, and encouraged by success we try again and come across
hand-irons and starch. At length we find a thing like a large concertina
which is really a folding bed with pillows and blankets, complete. By
great good luck a mosquito curtain is then found and the steward kindly
lends a candle.

Hot, sticky, tired and cross we prepare for our first meal on a Congo
steamer. It consisted of a soup of mystery, chicken, which had been
washed in the river close to a group of natives bathing and a goat,
killed an hour before dinner, whose flesh was thrown quivering into the
pot. However, there was some bread and tinned peaches and it was no use
being fastidious in Central Africa. This was washed down with the
regulation half litre of red wine, a kind of claret which is quite
drinkable and some native coffee which had a delicate and fine aroma,
but was badly made.

The captain--as indeed are nearly all the officers of the river
steamers--was a Scandinavian and spoke English very well. He explained
that the ship was not very clean or inviting-looking, which was the
truth, but as the lower deck was lumbered up with the horses of
Commandant Sillye and was swarming with natives, it was only to be
expected.

Then to bed, but not to sleep, for the boys to save themselves trouble,
had not fixed the mosquito net properly. In my innocence I merely
ordered them to do it and had not stood by and watched. It is indeed
necessary always to see that the native does as he is told, for the
moment one's back is turned, he is eating if there is anything rotten
enough at hand to tempt him and if not, he quietly goes to sleep. Even
these State servants who speak the native language and also a kind of
French, really live the lives