he was the king and sole inhabitant.
I walked on and explored every part of this small island of trees. I need not say that I did not meet with the crocodile. When I came out a wild shout greeted me; it was from my men, who were still at the same place where I had left them. I came toward them smiling and saying, "Do you think I am crazy? I tell you I have not seen that crocodile with scales of brass. I looked every where, and I saw nothing but trees." They all shouted, "You are a mbuiti" – a spirit.
We continued our way till we came to Amembié. Poor King Olenga-Yombi was drunk as usual; he was so tipsy, indeed, that he could not stand on his legs. Nevertheless, he welcomed his friend Chally, and said all his country belonged to me, and in joy he ordered another calabash full of palm wine to be brought to him, and drank off about half a gallon of it at once. This finished him up for the day; he fell back in the arms of his wives, shouting many times over, "I am a big king! I am a big king! I am Olenga-Yombi!" and was soon asleep. Poor Olenga-Yombi, he is an inveterate drunkard; not a day passes by that he is not tipsy.
The next morning I started for a large plantation of the king's before he was awake. The name of that plantation was "Nkongon-Boumba." There I found a large number of the king's slaves, and among them were a great many good hunters. These slaves knew me; they knew that I was their master's great friend; they knew I was theirs also, and that I had a good stock of beads for them and their wives. The head slave of the king, an Ishogo man called Ayombo, welcomed me, and brought me food.
I said to them, "Friends, I have come to live with you." They shouted "Yo! yo! yo!" "I want to hunt, and kill an ipi." "Yo! yo! yo! You shall kill an ipi," they shouted. "I want to kill gorillas and chimpanzees." "Yo! yo! yo! You shall kill gorillas and chimpanzees." "But, above all, I want to kill an ipi. My heart will go away sad if I do not kill an ipi." "Yo! yo! yo! You shall kill an ipi. We know where some are. Yo! yo! yo! You shall see an ipi."
You ask yourself what an ipi is. The ipi was an unknown animal. How did I come to know that such an animal existed? One day I saw a monda to which was suspended a large and thick yellow scale, such as I had never seen before. The pangolin had scales, but they were much smaller. There was no doubt that this scale belonged to the pangolin family, only I learned that the animal from which it was taken was of a larger variety.
The ipi, I was told, was very rare. Years had passed away, and no ipi had been seen by me; but some time ago King Olenga-Yombi had sent me word that an ipi had been near his plantation of Nkongon-Boumba, and I had come specially to hunt the ipi.
Many of the king's slaves had come from far-away tribes, and queer and ugly fellows they were, with lean legs, prominent abdomens, retreating foreheads, and projecting mouths.
The day of my arrival we rested. The good slaves and their kind wives brought fowls, plantains, pea-nuts, sugar-cane, some pine-apples, little lemons, wild honey, dried fish – in fact, they brought to me the best things they had. I gave them nice beads, and to some of the leading slaves I gave red caps.
That night there was dancing. The idol or mbuiti was consulted as to the results of the chase, for these interior people are very superstitions. They sang songs welcoming me.
The next morning a few of the leading slaves and myself started for an ipi hunt.
CHAPTER VI
We left the plantation at daybreak. Mayombo, the head slave, was the leader, and some of his children were with us. We all had guns; the boys carried, besides, two axes. In a little while we were in the forest. It was an awful day's hunt, and the first time since my return that I had to rough it in such a manner. We wandered over hills and dales, through the woods and the streams, now and then crossing a bog, leaving the hunting-paths, struggling for hours through the tangled maze and through patches of the wild pine-apple, which tore my clothes to rags and covered my poor body with scratches. The thorns and cutting edges of sword-like grass which grew in many places, and the sharp points of the pine-apple leaves, were not very pleasant things to get among. It was like the good old time, but I did not fancy the good old time. I was not yet inured to such tramps; I had forgotten all about them, but I knew that it was nothing but child's play when compared with the hardships I had suffered in my former explorations, or with what I expected to undergo in the future. I knew that I was hardening myself for what was coming by-and-by, and that it was necessary that I should go through such a schooling before starting for that long Nile journey from which I knew not if I should ever come back. I must get accustomed to sickness, to hunger, to privations of all kinds, to forced marches; I must be afraid of nothing, and trust in God for the result.
The end of the day was approaching; the birds gave forth their last songs, calling their mates, so that they might not be far apart for the night; the butterflies had ceased to fly, and were hiding themselves under the large leaves to keep away from the rains.
We had not been successful, but did not despair. We were to sleep in the woods, for the plantation was too far away. Oh, I was so tired. Mayombo immediately went off to cut some poles to support the large leaves which were to protect us from the rains, while his two sons collected as fast as they could the leaves, and I looked after firewood. I soon came to a spot where the dead branches lay thick on the ground, and I shouted, "Come here, boys!" A little after sunset our camp was built and our fires were lighted; then the boys pulled from their bags several plantains and a little parcel of dried fish packed in leaves. Not far from our camp a little rivulet ran meandering toward the sea; its water was clear and cool, so we had chosen a nice spot for the bivouac; but fires were to be kept burning brightly all night, "for," said Mayombo, "leopards are very plentiful here; we can not keep our goats; and two men have been missing within a month." After that exhortation, Mayombo, who was a great smoker, filled his pipe and lay down by the fire. In the mean time my supper had been cooked, but I was too tired to enjoy it, and I was too tired even to sleep.
The next evening we returned to the plantation, where all were glad to see us. After a day of rest we started again, for Mayombo swore that I should not rest till I had an ipi. We went in another direction, and Mayombo again took his two sons with him. Toward noon Mayombo gave a cluck, and pointed out to me a dead tree lying on the ground, and a strange-looking track leading up to it, and whispered into my ears the word "Ipi!"
That dead tree had been lying there, I suppose, for hundreds of years; nothing remained of it but the trunk, which was hollow throughout, and looked like a tube fifty or sixty feet long.
I examined the ground carefully at one end of the trunk, and saw no footprint there, so the animal had not gone out; at the other end the tracks were fresh, and it was evident that the animal had hidden inside the night before. I said to Mayombo, "Perhaps the ipi has gone away." "Oh no," said he; "don't you see there is only one track? Besides, it could not turn on itself, and, in order to get out, it has to go straight on to the other end."
Immediately he took the axe and cut down some branches of a tree, of which he made a trap to catch the animal if it should come out. The branch was put firmly in the ground, and the top was bent over with a creeper attached to it, at the end of which was a ring, through which the animal would have to pass before he could get out; a little forked stick held the ring, which the animal would shake as it passed through; the limb would fly up instantly, and high in the air would the ipi dangle.
When all this had been done, Mayombo, who had collected wood at the other end, set fire to it, to smoke the animal out. He was not mistaken; the ipi was inside, and it made for the opposite extremity and was caught. There was a short struggle, but we ran up and ended it by knocking the ipi with all our might on the head.
I saw at once that the ipi belonged to the pangolin genus (Manis of the zoologists), which is a very singular kind of animal. They are ant-eaters, like the Myrmecophaga of South America;
