Wild life under the equator

PAGE UNDER WAY IN AFRICA _Frontispiece._ PARROT ISLAND 21 AN AFRICAN WAR DANCE 27 ENCOUNTER WITH A LEOPARD 30 LYING LOW FOR ELEPHANTS 35 THE SNAKE CHARMER 41 APPEARANCE OF THE K...

I shall always remember that Island; for when I went there I was young and wild—as wild as the waves of that sea. I had no mother to care for me; I had no sister to love me when...

Now I had just left the Island of Nengue Ngozo, and if your eyes could have reached that part of the world, you might have seen me still in the same little canoe, made of the tr...

It was midnight; the moon had risen, and I could look at the expanse of the prairies situated near Point Obenda, on the Gaboon estuary. The moon threw just light enough to show...

Before I entered it the gate had to be opened in order to let me in. The village was composed only of a single street, each end was barricaded with stout sticks or palisades, an...

If you could have looked closely you would have seen three black men with me. They also were armed to the teeth and were loaded with provisions. Their bodies were painted and th...

As I and my men lay by the fire, I said to them—“Now to-night I am going to tell you a story; an old story from the white man’s country concerning yours.” There was a very great...

It was night; the moon had just risen, and threw a strange glare on every thing round; I was in the prairie, and had been there since ten o’clock in the morning, looking for wil...

A few days after killing the hippopotamus I took a solitary path in the woods, leading to one of the lagoons or creeks so common along this coast. Many of the trees growing in t...

What a strange thing is an African funeral! In a town on the banks of the Rembo, called Conaco, where I had just arrived in my canoe, a man was very ill. These poor savages seem...

We had just returned to our camp in the forest. The day was intensely warm; the rays of the sun poured down upon mother-earth with fearful force; in the forest all was silent as...

It is intensely hot. We are at the end of the month of March, and the rays of the sun are pouring upon us with a power which is terrific. Every two or three minutes I dip my umb...

Olanga-Condo, a mighty _ouganga_ (doctor), was to drink the _mboundou_. What an awful poison this _mboundou_ is! Nevertheless, Olanga-Condo could drink it; yes, he could drink i...

A royal feast is to be given to me: a real feast, where the King is going to show me what are the splendors of his kitchen department. That feast is to take place in the equator...

One day I was plodding along in the vast forest in search of game, and was suddenly startled by a strange noise falling upon my ears. I heard the footsteps of wild beasts runnin...

They cheer us in our lonely hours, when from their bowers their songs come upon our ears and gladden our hearts. Their melodies have often told me how happy they were, and how m...

Numbers of canoes, made each from the trunk of a single tree, are on the river-bank. My friend Quengueza is giving his orders for the comfort of Ntangani: “his friend Paul” is g...

Now, after many wanderings, I find myself in the very large village of Bakalai called Njali-Coudié. Often I wonder that I have not been murdered by these Bakalai, for they are v...

The first night I could not sleep, as no African feast is complete without shouting, drumming, singing, dancing, and a good deal of drinking, when the latter can be got. The noi...

I was in the forest, under a large tree, very ill. I had been sick with a fever for some weeks, and all the medicine I had taken seemed to do me no good. Little by little my str...

War is looming on the banks of the Ovenga. Witchcraft is at the bottom of the trouble. The Bakalais have met from every vale and from every hill, and chiefs and elders and warri...

We are merry. Our camp has been built; we are in a country where elephants, gorillas, leopards, and wild boars are abundant. There are also antelopes and gazelles, and other wil...

Now, though we have not left our hunting grounds of the preceding chapter, we have moved toward the Ovenga River, and have built our camp not far from its shore. We are now real...

Querlaouen, Malaouen, and their wives and children, and all their families, which amounted to about forty people, had worked hard at digging elephant pits, of the same shape as...

I have just arrived in a deserted village; there was not a soul to be seen. There was nothing, absolutely nothing, to remind us of living man except the abandoned huts. How sad...

The country to which we have come is a very dangerous one, for war is raging in the Ashankolo land; and though the Ovenga River lies between us and the Ashankola people, and tho...

One morning, just at daylight, Querlaouen and I, without saying a word to Gambo and Malaouen, scaled our palisade with the ladder and went to look after the traps we had made fo...

We left the gorilla scene I have just described to you in the preceding chapter, and made for our camp. As we came in sight of it Querlaouen gave the peculiar whistle agreed upo...