SHUT UP IN THE AFRICAN FOREST.

IF you take a straight line between Yambuya on the Aruimi, and Kavallis on the Albert Nyanza, divide that line into five portions and measure off four of these from the Yambuya end, you will have arrived at the approximate locality of Fort Bodo.

The objects of this fort or station, in connection with the Emin Pasha relief expedition, are probably well known to most of those who will read this article. It will, I think, suffice to say that every conceivable art known to white man or black, that could be adapted to the circumstances, was employed in making it as strong as it could be.

The position of our home of eight months was long. 29° 27′ E., lat. 1° 20' N.; its height 3,500 feet above the sea.

The native name of the village and surrounding district is Ibwiri. But to arrive at the names of the numerous tribes around us would seem a hopeless job. Each collection of villages in this part of the forest belongs to a sultan or chief, whose rule is despotic. In the course of one good day's march you will find two different languages. Thus, if you were to start on a Monday morning from a certain place whose people spoke a certain language, you would camp that night perhaps at a village whose people could barely talk intelligibly with those you had left in the morning, and on Tuesday evening you would find yourself amongst others to whom the language of Monday morning meant nothing. The people of each of these central villages called themselves tribes. The nearest term for the people who originally resided at or near the fort would be Wasongora.

On the 26th of April, 1888, I found myself back in Fort Bodo, wearied and worn down to a skeleton with the march through the forest to and from Ugarrowas station, 220 miles west of the fort. It was on the 22nd of December, just eight months later, that we set fire to and destroyed our home in the forest.

To make this little account of our experiences of life in this fort in the forest intelligible, some description of its internal structure must be given.

The general form of the fort was as that of a tortoise, so placed

as to command the ground on every side. Two high towers at the north-west and south-east corners or angles gave extra command, and enabled sentries to look down upon the standing crops of corn, &c., on all sides. Two other towers, with platforms eleven feet high, gave flank defence to the north and south faces. Whatever dead ground there might be was rendered useless to an attacking party by means of stakes, &c., cunningly concealed after the fashion of the natives of the country to the west of us.

We had inside the boma, or stockade, four large clay houses as quarters for the Europeans; cook-houses, granaries, a magazine and storehouse, and one house for our head man (a black). The two granaries together had a capacity of eleven tons, and were raised twelve feet off the ground, to secure them from rats and other thieves.

A circle of 280 yards radius, described with the flagstaff of the fort as centre, would just about cut the edge of the forest on all sides. Thus we had a clearing of about eleven acres with the fort as centre, situated in the depths of this enormous forest. To the east lay the nearest open country, five good hard marches.

To the west, forest down to the banks of the Congo, 630 miles distant.

To the south, forest for three months' march;-and to the north I doubt if anyone can tell its limit-at least 200 miles.

Try then to realise our position. It seemed to us as if we were in a different world to that in which we had lived most of our lives.

There was nothing in common with our existence and that of people in other parts of the world, except perhaps our own natures. Every single article of food that we ate was to be planted, reaped, and gathered within 500 yards of our houses-fuel, water, clay and leaves for houses, poles, ropes, everything necessary for our daily life was found in the same small circle.

Waiting for your dinner at home is not, I think, generally considered a lively pastime; but to plant your crops, weed them, reap and gather them, and not till then get your dinner is decidedly unpleasant. It is calculated though to give you an appetite for your dinner when it does come.

Luckily for us there were the native banana plantations in the immediate vicinity of the fort to draw on, and our diet for some time consisted of this excellent fruit (vide reports of travellers). Our ideas on the subject of bananas were that, when nothing else could be got, they were good eating; but that after several months of bananas roasted, fried, baked, raw, stewed, and worked up into puddings, it was quite time to cry 'Enough!'

The strength and composition of our little garrison was as follows:

:

Natives from various parts of the forest, from 15 to 30

At times when the main column passed through, the numbers would be swelled by some hundreds, and one could count no less than twenty-two different languages.

Ki-Suahili, the language of the East Coast of Africa, was the general language, and by this time everyone had become proficient in it. The three Europeans were Nelson, Parke, and myself. We had on an average for the eight months a force of forty-eight rifles to defend the fort from attacks. In addition to this was our Maxim gun always ready, but fortunately never used. The work of planting, building, keeping up the parapets and stockades, grinding flour, sentry duties, and the active defensive, had to be done by this little force. Any person who has been in a somewhat similar position will fully understand what this means.

For the last six months of occupation not a single friendly word was exchanged with an outsider. We were a little world in ourselves, and preferred to remain enemies with the Wasangora to a treacherous friendship, to result perhaps in the capture of our stronghold and the extermination of our garrison. Those natives that were caught in skirmishes were led at once to the guard-house, and there examined. After getting out of them all we could, they were cautioned, arms confiscated, threatened with punishment if caught again, and released, being chased into the bush by men armed with switches. They were not allowed to see our numbers, or the inside of the fort. To none did we give presents.

The best method of getting an insight to our daily life will perhaps be to give extracts from my journals:

Saturday, April 28th.—N. has had bad fever all day; temperature up to 106° this afternoon.

The old heron (Katonga), which was left a prisoner when I left for below, has disappeared. Some say he heard his comrades calling near the stream and went off to join them. Most probably he was eaten by a Zanzibari.

It will be a very strange life this. Here we are cooped up in our own little surroundings, with our trials and cares to grin at and bear as elsewhere. An army corps might be within twenty miles of us and we should not know it. There is now not a bite of European food in the place; even tea is a thing of bygone days. To work hard and wait patiently for things to develop is all we can do. On all sides are the Wasangora, who sneak into our plantations and play havoc with our food-supplies. We are constantly exchanging shots

with them, but I do not think a friendship with them advisable; they are too cunning. Herds of elephants seem to hover around us too. They are extremely partial to banana stalks. In four months. after the Manyuema drive natives away from their villages there is not a single banana-plant standing. Elephants complete the work of the slave-raiders.

We are about the toughest-looking crowd I ever saw. Our boots are of local make and smell horribly; every article of dress seems to require chronic patching; needles are scarce articles, the Manyuema having begged, borrowed, or stolen most of these necessaries. Candles and soap are unknown, and ink is becoming scarce. I possess one small lead pencil when the ink gives out.

Monday, 30th.-Men out cutting poles and materials for new houses; others working up clay. The new granary should hold six tons of corn, so that with the old one we shall be able to store about eleven tons. The beans are a failure, owing to insects, though planted in three different spots.

Natives getting bold; sent out Rugga-Rugga (literally raiders, but in this case patrol), saw the natives, who decamped, leaving their baskets. A favourite amusement of these people now seems to lie in placing sharp-pointed stakes freshly covered with poison on the paths through the bananas. It takes a sharp eye to see

them.

Tuesday.-Claying up my new house. N. has a quarter of an acre of healthy-looking tobacco-plants (native seed) doing well. Huts in this country must have steep pitches to the roofs; we have no grass, so have to use leaves. After a week's hard work on a roof it is riling to see the way the wind lifts the whole thing off and deposits it half-way across the square.

May 9th.-State of garrison, 60; men with rifles, 59. Set out another quarter of an acre of picked tobacco-plants; started squad of fifteen with billhooks on hillside near the creek at clearing scrub.

Sunday, 13th.-Killed the big white goat; first day of Ramadan, no books to read. (Mr. Stanley afterwards left his books here, two months later, and the enjoyment we got out of them may perhaps be understood.)

I pass on now over the first two months when the column came through from the Nyanza, and left on the 16th for Yambuya. Our duties were now increased by the addition of many sick men suffering from ulcers, &c., and food became more scarce, owing to frequent tornadoes which destroyed our crops.

In the meantime we had made salt, beer, and banana jam, to add to our comforts. The supply of ripe bananas procurable having given out by the end of July, we had to write off the beer and jam from our diet-list.

We have some amusing characters among us, though perhaps sometimes the amusement afforded by them is not always intentional on their part. Mufta Saramini, having been sent into the bush with some men to cut poles, climbed a tree to get at a nice dry limb of firewood some distance up from the ground. He got at last halfway out towards the end of the limb, and commenced chopping the limb on the inside, or the side nearest the trunk, he sitting outside; when he had nearly finished cutting through the wood the limb he was sitting on broke off, and limb, billhook, and man came all of a heap to the ground. He decided ever after this to cut outside when sitting on a limb. For many days the mention of this was the signal for roars of laughter from the men.

My supply of ink is nearly finished; I have added water so many times that it now resembles picnic lemonade in strength. I will try the Arab plan of making some more from burnt husks of rice.

One often forgets that on every side of us are our enemies, and that we are liable to attack at any moment; of course, when our men meet the Wasongora in the bush, it is bullets versus arrows and spears. There are now no inhabited villages within fifteen miles of the camp, but bands of natives constantly come in and raid our shambas (plantations); we generally track them and have a scrimmage next day, just to show them we are not asleep.

Tracking is a science: some have a natural quickness and aptitude for it; others are of no use at all at it. The keen way, for instance, in which Farag Ala can follow up a native track is wonderful; the slightest sign is noticed by him. The only other art that resembles tracking is 'finding your way about in the bush.' A clever bush native near his own home, acting as your guide, no matter how much you may have twisted and turned, or gone up hill and down dale, when asked where camp is, will instantly say 'There,' and point out the direction. He knows where his home is, just as the wild bee does; he has mentally and instinctively been carrying on a 'traverse,' carefully noticing the angles of deflection and the distance travelled. over; this he has plotted in his mind, and when asked where he is, he reads the map he has made on his brain, and lets you know the result. It is fatal to interrupt a tracker by unnecessary speaking. If doubts are cast as to the skill of the leading man, and he feels that he is not trusted, most probably confusion will follow.

With the seeds P. has brought back from Emin Pasha, we should be able to do something; there are peas, onions, balmias, and two or three others which as yet we fail to recognise.

June 19th.-At work on garden and N.'s house, men getting leaves from the forest for the roof of latter all day. Our garden has now assumed quite a respectable shape; we have four large, raised beds, and the whole is secured with a strong fence. Our ideas of planting the different seeds disagree considerably; all we know about VOL. XXIX.-No. 167.

E