The men had their bodies painted in different colours. Some had one cheek red and the other white or yellow. A broad white or yellow stripe was painted across the middle of the chest and along both the arms. Others had their bodies spotted. Most ugly they looked! The women wore several iron or brass rings around their wrists and ankles.
Then the singing began, and the dancing! I had never seen such dancing before. It was very ungraceful. The drummers beat on the tom-toms with all their might. As they became warm with exertion their bodies shone like seals, so oily were they.
I looked and looked, with my eyes wide open; I was nearly stunned with the noise. As the women danced and sung, the brass and iron rings which they wore struck against each other, and kept time with the music and the beating of the tom-toms.
But why were they all there dancing and screeching around the idol?
They were about to start on a hunting expedition, and they were asking the idol to give them good luck in their sport.
When I found it was to be a hunting expedition, I wanted to go at once with these savages, though I was only a lad under twenty years old.
I retired to my hut with a valiant heart; I was going to do great things.
If you had been in my place, boys, would you not have felt the same? Would you have left the gorillas alone? I am sure you all shout at once, "No! no!" Would you have let the elephants go unmolested in the forest? "Certainly not," will be your answer.
And what about the chimpanzee, and the big leopards who carry away so many people and eat them, the huge buffaloes, the wild boars, the antelopes, and the gazelles?
Perhaps you are all going to say "Yes" to that; and I think you are right, for many of these snakes are very poisonous, and they are numerous in these great forests; for the country I am telling you about is nothing but an immense jungle. When a man is bitten by one of these snakes he often dies in a few minutes. There is also to be found in these woods an immense python, or boa, that swallows antelopes, gazelles, and many other animals. I shall have a good deal to tell you about them by-and-by.
So I resolved that I would try to see all these native tribes; that I would have a peep at the cannibals; that I would have a good look also at the dwarfs.