Chapter XI · (continued 2)

It had happened some years before, as one of Ghattas’s companies was making their way across Wando’s territories, that six Nubians were murdered in the woods by some natives who had accompanied them to the chase, professing to be their guides. As soon as the Nubians had fired away all their ammunition in shooting at their game they had no means of defence left in their power, and consequently were easily mastered. Mohammed at once sent to demand the six guns, which beyond a doubt were in the possession of Wando’s people—​so anxious was he to prevent the natives from becoming acquainted with the use of firearms. Wando commenced by denying his ability to meet the demand, and then resorted to procrastination; but subsequently, pressed by Mohammed, who declared that the continuance of his friendly relations must depend upon the restitution of the guns, he surrendered four of them, asserting that the others could not be found. Any further satisfaction was not to be expected, because on the one hand there was either no getting the perpetrators into custody, and on the other, even if they could be brought from their place of refuge, no one could be bribed to give any substantial evidence against them.

On the second day after our arrival at Wando’s residence, attended by a considerable number of natives and a dozen soldiers, I made an excursion out for about two leagues northwards along the banks of the Dyagbe. Guereza-monkeys in merry groups were in the foliage above, but I was not fortunate enough to bring down more than a single specimen. According to the statements of my guides, who were hunters by profession, chimpanzees were numerous, but we certainly did not get a glimpse of one. Very weary with my exertions of tramping over the marshy ground I was rejoiced to bring back into camp an ample booty in the way of botanical rarities.

THE LEAF-EATER.

During our travels I had obtained from the Niam-niam who accompanied our caravan an epithet which I never lost in all the subsequent stages of our journey. In their own dialect these people called me “Mbarik-pa,” which would be equivalent to a name amongst us of “Leaf-eater.” It was a designation that reminded me very vividly of my professional brother David Douglas, who fell a martyr to his devotion to Nature, and who was known amongst the North-American Indians as “the Grass-man.”

My Niam-niam interpreter Gyabir, as I learnt some time afterwards, had given his friends some marvellous accounts of the way in which I was accustomed to eat whatever I found growing. He used to relate that I had a habit of dismissing my attendants and getting into a dense thicket where I imagined that I was unobserved, and that then I used with great haste to gather and devour enormous quantities of leaves, and he added that this was the way in which, one day after another, I groped after my ordinary food. Others contributed their observation that I invariably came forth from the woods with an exhilarated expression and quite a satiated look, whilst they were conscious of nothing else than the cravings of hunger. After all it was very natural; for the inspiration which is derived from contemplating Nature can elevate one far above his mortal and bodily wants.

The dominant idea which seemed to be impressed upon the natives by my botanical ardour concentrated itself upon their conviction as to the character of the country where the white man has his home. According to their belief the land wherein the white men spent their lives could show neither grass nor tree, and consisted of nothing better than sandy plain and stony flat. Those amongst them who had been carried away as slaves in the ivory expeditions and had returned again from Khartoom had brought strange accounts of the grim desolation and utter drought of the Moslem lands over which they had passed; and what, they asked, must be the condition of the still remoter countries of the Frank, of whom they only knew that he kept the Turk supplied with cotton-stuffs and guns?