His gait was the peculiar mincing teeter
of savage conventional society. According to custom, he
approached unsmiling, spat carefully in his palm, and shook
hands. Then he squatted and waited.
"What is it?" we asked after it became evident he really wanted
something besides the pleasure of our company.
"N'dowa-medicine," said he.
"Why do you not go the Government dispensary?" we demanded.
"The doctor there is an Indian; I want REAL medicine, white man's
medicine," he explained.
Immensely flattered, of course, we wanted further to know what
ailed him.
"Nothing," said he blandly, "nothing at all; but it seemed an
excellent chance to get good medicine."
After the clinic was all attended to, we retired to our tents and
the screeching-hot bath so grateful in the tropics. When we
emerged, in our mosquito boots and pajamas, the daylight was
gone. Scores of little blazes licked and leaped in the velvet
blackness round about, casting the undergrowth and the lower
branches of the trees into flat planes like the cardboard of a
stage setting. Cheerful, squatted figures sat in silhouette or in
the relief of chance high light.
