cannibals. I went among them, as I have already said, unarmed. On the other hand, should he chance to die among them from dysentery, brought on by a vegetable diet (which is always probable), he will have the satisfaction of reflecting in his last moments of life that his body will be carefully prepared for the tomb, and that it will be viewed as a sacred legacy by those who give it burial.

CHAPTER XV.

DRUGGED ELEPHANTS.

Visit an Elephant Nghâl.-Menagerie in the Forest.-Explanation of the Mystery.

Two days after I had returned to Glass Town I heard that some elephants had been inclosed in a nghâl. It is not every day that one has a chance of seeing wild elephants penned in like sheep, so I started immediately with crew and canoe to view the phenomenon. After fifteen miles of the broad river, we turned off into by-creeks lined with mangroves. It happened to be low water, and we cut off several branches incrusted with oysters, which we picked off seriatim, opened with great difficulty, and found them tasteless and flabby, owing to the heavy rains.

Now and then we caught sight of a single man or woman in a small canoe. These always made off with velocity, abandoned their boats in the black mud, and hid themselves in the maze of mangroves. So large a canoe as mine seldom appeared in these out-of-the-way places except for purposes of war, which appears to be chronic among these aborigines.

Grebes and egrets flew about in clouds. Sometimes we saw grave pelicans perched upon trees, where, in spite of their huge. goose-like feet, they appeared to be perfectly at home. Landcrabs darted about in the muddy banks, dodging in and out of innumerable holes like rabbits in a warren; and "jumping Johnnies," a curious little animal, something between newt, frog, and fish, hopped away as we shot past with our gay Camma song, and our paddles sprinkling silver water in the air.

We put up for the night at a plantation-village, which, belonging to a great chieftain of Gaboon, was surrounded by farms, and inhabited by agricultural slaves.

The next morning I set out for the nghal, which was about two miles from the village, taking with me some white beads, my price of admission to this menagerie of the bush.

Some Fan hunters, I was told, had found that three elephants frequented this part of the forest. Paying a ground-rent to the

Mpongwe, owners of the soil, they had built their nghal, and had succeeded in inclosing the elephants.

I found a few acres of ground inclosed by posts and railings, the stoutest fence which these savages can build. Round it, at intervals, were the huts of the hunters and their families. Very simple dwellings were these-roofs of dry leaves supported by four poles, and bamboo settles within.

The ground inclosed was one of those comparatively open patches which are sometimes met with in the equatorial forests, covered with a thick shrubby vegetation, and a large tree standing here and there. Under one of these, which was pointed out to me, the elephants were said to be sleeping. I wished to go inside the nghal, and to creep up close to them. This the Fans

would not hear of, though I offered them beads ad libitum. No, they feared that my white face would frighten the elephants, and that they would break away. "If they do that, sir, Mr. Reade," whispered Oshupu, "these people make you pay plenty for that palaver."

While we were disputing there was a great commotion, and a crowd of young men came running round. The elephants were awake. I was carried with the stream, mounted on the railings, and one of them was pointed out to me. He was a fine old tusker, and was not more than a hundred yards from me. He was swinging himself on three feet, sometimes lazily raising his trunk to the tree above him, and apparently unconscious of the Babel around.

The elephant, we have always been led to believe, is, even in its wild state, one of the most intelligent and most wary of animals: in strength, the mammoth of modern days; in habit, the most averse to human intrusion. It is a reflecting, contemplative animal, with strongly-developed tastes for solitude and peace.

Now imagine this giant of intelligence decoyed into so palpable a trap. Imagine this monster, which can uproot trees, confined within a fence not strong enough to resist a calf. Imagine this philosopher of so high an order surrounded by talking sav ages. You do not know how a negro talks. What can be the feelings of the elephant, with his retiring nature and his gentle repugnance to man, in such a position? Why, he would be a Timon of Athens "blocked" at Temple Bar.

Unable to imagine this, you will perform an easier mental operation. You will disbelieve it. In the reader's case I should do the same. But here I was with the wretched animal before my eyes, and I was under the painful necessity of believing them.

I asked how the elephants came within the nghal, which, rude as it was, must have occupied these savages a considerable time to put up. Were they driven there? No. The elephants were in the neighborhood. The nghal was built. A gap was left open, which they showed me; for they had not even taken the trouble to close it: it was just large enough for an elephant to enter.

The medicine-men made fetich for them to come in; they came in. The medicine-men made fetich for them to remain; and they remained. When they were being killed fetich would be made that they might not be angry. In a fortnight's time the new moon would appear, and the elephants would then be killed. Be

fore that time all the shrubs and high grass would be cut down; the fence would be strengthened, and interlaced with boughs. The elephants would be killed with spears, cross-bows, and guns.

At this moment a man came round singing in a melancholy voice, and dabbing the fence with a rag steeped in a dark brown liquid. The chief of the hunters informed me that the fetich was held every day when the sun was at that part of the sky. Its power would be rendered null and void by the presence of a white man. They would be happy to see me at the new moon.

I took this hint, which was accompanied with much broad. laughter, but my trip to Camma prevented me from accepting their invitation. The killing of the elephant, however, though the most exciting, is a feature far less remarkable than their presence in the nghal, and their retention there during so long a period.

"There is something still unexplained," writes Sir Emerson Tennent, "in the dread which an elephant always exhibits on approaching a fence. . . . Sportsmen observe that the elephant, even when enraged by a wound, will hesitate to charge its assailant across an intervening hedge, but will hurry along it to seek for an opening."

Might this nghal then be built across the elephant's "road?" and might he, turning aside, enter by the gap the first opening which presented itself? But how account for his calmness, when the Indian elephants, as we know, display the greatest violence on inding themselves entrapped? In Asia an army is required to inclose them, and they are only tamed, as they are attracted, by the aid of female decoys.

I can only surmise that the elephants are attracted into the nghal by means of some plant for which they have the same mania as cats for verbine, and rabbits for oil of rhodium. Such herbal secrets as we know are often possessed by the medicine-men, or priest-doctors, among savage nations. This must have been the "fetich" which made them come in.

Animals have strong antipathies. The dark brown liquid sprinkled on the fence might possibly have been the "fetich" which made them remain; and herbs with stupefying properties scattered on the ground, or poisoned plantains, the "fetich" which prevented them from being angry when they were being killed.

A slave, who belonged to the unvisited kingdom of Maticamoo, and whom I saw some months afterward in Angola, told me that