I can see its
great, beautiful, lambent eyes still, and I seized an earthen water-
cooler and flung it straight at them. It was a noble shot; it burst
on the leopard's head like a shell and the leopard went for bush one
time. Twenty minutes after people began to drop in cautiously and
inquire if anything was the matter, and I civilly asked them to go
and ask the leopard in the bush, but they firmly refused. We found
the dog had got her shoulder slit open as if by a blow from a
cutlass, and the leopard had evidently seized the dog by the scruff
of her neck, but owing to the loose folds of skin no bones were
broken and she got round all right after much ointment from me,
which she paid me for with several bites. Do not mistake this for a
sporting adventure. I no more thought it was a leopard than that it
was a lotus when I joined the fight. My other leopard was also
after a dog. Leopards always come after dogs, because once upon a
time the leopard and the dog were great friends, and the leopard
went out one day and left her whelps in charge of the dog, and the
dog went out flirting, and a snake came and killed the whelps, so
there is ill-feeling to this day between the two. For the benefit
of sporting readers whose interest may have been excited by the
mention of big game, I may remark that the largest leopard skin I
ever measured myself was, tail included, 9 feet 7 inches. It was a
dried skin, and every man who saw it said, "It was the largest skin
he had ever seen, except one that he had seen somewhere else."
The largest crocodile I ever measured was 22 feet 3 inches, the
largest gorilla 5 feet 7 inches. I am assured by the missionaries
in Calabar, that there was a python brought into Creek Town in the
Rev. Mr. Goldie's time, that extended the whole length of the Creek
Town mission-house verandah and to spare. This python must have
been over 40 feet. I have not a shadow of doubt it was. Stay-at-
home people will always discredit great measurements, but
experienced bushmen do not, and after all, if it amuses the stay-at-
homes to do so, by all means let them; they have dull lives of it
and it don't hurt you, for you know how exceedingly difficult it is
to preserve really big things to bring home, and how, half the time,
they fall into the hands of people who would not bother their heads
to preserve them in a rotting climate like West Africa.
The largest python skin I ever measured was a damaged one, which was
26 feet. There is an immense one hung in front of a house in San
Paul de Loanda which you can go and measure yourself with
comparative safety any day, and which is, I think, over 20 feet. I
never measured this one. The common run of pythons is 10-15 feet,
or rather I should say this is about the sized one you find with
painful frequency in your chicken-house.
Of the Lubuku secret society I can speak with no personal knowledge.
I had a great deal of curious information regarding it from a Bakele
woman, who had her information second-hand, but it bears out what
Captain Latrobe Bateman says about it in his most excellent book The
First Ascent of the Kasai (George Phillip, 1889), and to his account
in Note J of the Appendix, I beg to refer the ethnologist. My
information also went to show what he calls "a dark inference as to
its true nature," a nature not universally common by any means to
the African tribal secret society.
In addition to the secret society and the leopard society, there are
in the Delta some ju-jus held only by a few great chiefs. The one
in Bonny has a complete language to itself, and there is one in Duke
Town so powerful that should you desire the death of any person you
have only to go and name him before it. "These jujus are very swift
and sure." I would rather drink than fight with any of them - yes,
far.
CHAPTER XVII. ASCENT OF THE GREAT PEAK OF CAMEROONS.
Setting forth how the Voyager is minded to ascend the mountain
called Mungo Mah Lobeh, or the Throne of Thunder, and in due course
reaches Buea, situate thereon.
After returning from Corisco I remained a few weeks in Gaboon, and
then left on the Niger, commanded by Captain Davies. My regrets, I
should say, arose from leaving the charms and interests of Congo
Francais, and had nothing whatever to do with taking passage on one
of the most comfortable ships of all those which call on the Coast.
The Niger was homeward-bound when I joined her, and in due course
arrived in Cameroon River, and I was once again under the dominion
of Germany. It would be a very interesting thing to compare the
various forms of European government in Africa - English, French,
German, Portuguese, and Spanish; but to do so with any justice would
occupy more space than I have at my disposal, for the subject is
extremely intricate. Each of these forms of government have their
good points and their bad. Each of them are dealing with bits of
Africa differing from each other - in the nature of their inhabitants
and their formation, and so on - so I will not enter into any
comparison of them here.
From the deck of the Niger I found myself again confronted with my
great temptation - the magnificent Mungo Mah Lobeh - the Throne of
Thunder.
