Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/147

 we, gory we, pro pa reary gory we." This M'pongwe does not sound so musical as the Effik, Sarah gives an extempore prayer however, which is very beautiful in sound, and she intones it most tastefully. But I confess my mind is distracted by a malignant-looking pig which hovers round us as we kneel upon the sand. I well remember Captain being chivied by a pig in the confines of Die Grosse Colonie, and then there is the chance of ants and so on up one's ankles. Mrs. Gault gives an address which Sarah translates into M'pongwe, and then come more hymns, and the meeting closes, and the ladies settle down and have a quiet pipe and a chat. We then saunter off and visit native Christians' houses. Many houses here are built clumps round a square, but this form of arrangement seems only a survival, for I find there is no necessary relationship among the people living in the square as there is in Calabar: and so home.

31st.—Start out at 2.30 and walk through the grass country behind Baraka, and suddenly fall down into a strange place.

On sitting up after the shock consequent on an unpremeditated descent of some thirteen feet or so, I find myself in a wild place; before me are two cave-like cavities, with a rough wood seat in each; behind me another similar cavity or chamber; the space I am in is about three feet wide; to the left this is terminated by an earth wall; to the right it goes, as a path, down a cutting or trench which ends in dry grass.

No sign of human habitation. Are these sacrifice places, I wonder, or are they places where those Fans one hears so much about, come and secretly eat human flesh? Clearly they are not vestiges of an older civilisation. In fact, what in the world are they? I investigate and find they are nothing in the world more than markers' pits for a rifle range.

Disgust, followed by alarm, seizes me; those French authorities may take it into their heads to think I am making plans of their military works! Visions of incarceration flash before my yes, and I fly into more grass and ticks, going westwards until I pick up a path, and following this, find myself in a little village. In the centre of the street, see the strange arrow-