In the evening I took a stroll in the forest and soon found the recent spoor of an elephant.  Chikaia was just ahead, when he suddenly stopped and whispered macat pointing in the air.  There was a fine monkey and the boy’s instinct for such a choice morsel, actually caused him to stop, although he knew very well it would have been absurd to fire and so frighten the elephant.  At one time we must have been within a few yards of the beast when a snapping of a twig or some sound disturbed him and with a bellow he rushed away crashing through the forest.  It is curious that while birds are so bold in Africa, ground game is extremely shy and most difficult to stalk.

On September 2nd we reach Imese, the first place on the Ubangi where there are white men.  Mr. Donneaux was the Chef du poste and everything was in good order.  Rubber vines were being planted in the forest and rubber shrubs in the clearings.  Coffee was also growing and pineapples and other fruits looked well.  All the houses are, as usual, of brick which are of better quality than on the Congo, as the clay is good and very abundant.  The native village is about ten minutes’ walk distant and is arranged in two or three regular streets and not in patches of huts dotted down here and there as in the Lake Tumba District.  The State impost here is one kilogramme of rubber each month from each man for which he is paid 40 or 50 centimes.  Collecting this amount takes one or two days and the rest of the time the native works for himself or not as he chooses.  Here the people seem more industrious than in most parts, many women being engaged in making mats and pottery.  The pots are fashioned by hand with the aid of a round stone and are so wonderfully symmetrical that they resemble those made on a lathe.  The clay is obtained from the river bed by diving and after the vessel is made, it is first dried in the sun and then baked in a wood fire.  While still hot, it is painted with gum copal which renders it water-tight.

[Illustration:  YOUNG COFFEE TREES AT COQUILHATVILLE.]

At dinner we have a dish called beefsteak American. formed apparently of very tender, cold meat with green salad and mayonnaise.  On asking however, we hear it is the raw flesh of goat cut up small.  It is certainly the best way of eating goat’s flesh, for any method of cooking seems to extract what little juice it possesses and convert it into a substance resembling old leather.  The name is curious, for it is neither beef nor steak, and is probably as rare in America as Irish stew is in Ireland or Welsh rarebit in Wales.

There are some very fine canoes here, very often carved throughout their entire length, a favourite device being a crocodile.  Two or three very large tom-toms. are also in the village.  These instruments are carved from a solid piece of a tree six or eight feet long, most of the interior being extracted through a narrow slit-like aperture two or three inches wide and running nearly the length of the tom-tom.  The result is a hollow instrument, giving one or two different notes when struck in different parts which can be heard for many miles.  In case of war, the whole country side can be quickly aroused, but the tom-tom. is also used during peace as a telegraph.