Page:Travels in West Africa, Congo Français, Corisco and Cameroons (IA travelsinwestafr00kingrich).pdf/647

 the rice and the rum, and the latter goes off content, vowing he'll have their value to the last farthing out of Kefalla. The men then gradually go off to sleep, breaking out now and again spasmodically into little rows over a pipe, and so on, until at last all is peace.

There is a very peculiar look on the rotten wood on the ground round here; to-night it has patches and flecks of iridescence like one sees on herrings or mackerel that have been kept too long. The appearance of this strange eerie light in among the bush is very weird and charming. I have seen it before in dark forests at night, but never so much of it.

September 27th.—Fine morning. It's a blessing my Pappenheimers have not recognised what this means for the afternoon. We take things very leisurely. I know it's no good hurrying, we are dead sure of getting a ducking before we reach Buea anyhow, so we may as well enjoy ourselves while we can.

I ask my boys how they would "make fire suppose no matches live." Not one of them thinks it possible to do so, "it pass man to do them thing suppose he no got live stick or matches." They are coast boys, all of them, and therefore used to luxury, but it is really remarkable how widely diffused matches are inland, and how very dependent on them these natives are. When I have been away in districts where they have not penetrated, it is exceedingly rarely that the making of fire has to be resorted to. I think I may say that in most African villages it has not had to be done for years and years, because when a woman’s fire has gone out, owing to her having been out at work all day, she just runs into some neighbour's hut where there is a fire burning, and gives compliments, and picks up a burning stick from the fire and runs home. From this comes the compliment, equivalent to our "Oh! don't go away yet," of "You come to fetch fire." This will be said to you all the way from Sierra Leone to Loanda, as far as I know, if you have been making yourself agreeable in an African home, even if the process may have extended over a day or so. The hunters, like the Fans, have to make fire, and do it now with a flint and steel; but in districts where their tutor in this method—the flint-lock gun—is not available, they will do it with two sticks, not always like the American