Ngouta Turned Up With My Tea, So I Went Inside, And Had
It On The Bed.
The door-hole was entirely filled with a mosaic of
faces, but no one attempted to come in.
All the time the carrier
palaver went on without cessation, and I went out and offered to
take Gray Shirt's and Pagan's place, knowing they must want their
chop, but they refused relief, and also said I must not raise the
price; I was offering too big a price now, and if I once rise the
Fan will only think I will keep on rising, and so make the palaver
longer to talk. "How long does a palaver usually take to talk round
here?" I ask. "The last one I talked," says Pagan, "took three
weeks, and that was only a small price palaver." "Well," say I, "my
price is for a start to-morrow - after then I have no price - after
that I go away." Another hour however sees the jam made, and to my
surprise I find the three richest men in this town of M'fetta have
personally taken up the contract - Kiva my host, Fika a fine young
fellow, and Wiki, another noted elephant hunter. These three Fans,
the four Ajumba and the Igalwa, Ngouta, I think will be enough.
Moreover I fancy it safer not to have an overpowering percentage of
Fans in the party, as I know we shall have considerable stretches of
uninhabited forest to traverse; and the Ajumba say that the Fans
will kill people, i.e. the black traders who venture into their
country, and cut them up into neat pieces, eat what they want at the
time, and smoke the rest of the bodies for future use.
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