Really if Dr. Nassau is right, and these Fans are
descendants of Adam and Eve, I expect the Cain and Abel killing
palaver is still kept going among them.
Wiki, being great on bush rope, gave me much information regarding
rubber, showing me the various other vines besides the true rubber
vine, whose juice, mingled with the true sap by the collector when
in the forest, adds to the weight; a matter of importance, because
rubber is bought by weight. The other adulteration gets done by the
ladies in the villages when the collected sap is handed over to them
to prepare for the markets.
This preparation consists of boiling it in water slightly, and
adding a little salt, which causes the gummy part to separate and go
to the bottom of the pot, where it looks like a thick cream. The
water is carefully poured off this deposit, which is then taken out
and moulded, usually in the hands; but I have seen it run into
moulds made of small calabashes with a stick or piece of iron
passing through, so that when the rubber is set this can be
withdrawn. A hole being thus left the balls can be threaded on to a
stick, usually five on one stick, for convenience of transport. It
is during the moulding process that most of the adulteration gets
in. Down by the side of many of the streams there is a white
chalky-looking clay which is brought up into the villages, powdered
up, and then hung up over the fire in a basket to attain a uniform
smuttiness; it is then worked into the rubber when it is being made
up into balls. Then a good chunk of Koko, Arum esculentum (Koko is
better than yam, I may remark, because it is heavier), also smoked
approximately the right colour, is often placed in the centre of the
rubber ball. In fact, anything is put there, that is hopefully
regarded as likely to deceive the white trader. So great is the
adulteration, that most of the traders have to cut each ball open.
Even the Kinsembo rubber, which is put up in clusters of bits shaped
like little thimbles formed by rolling pinches of rubber between the
thumb and finger, and which one would think difficult to put
anything inside of, has to be cut, because "the simple children of
nature" who collect it and bring it to that "swindling white trader"
struck upon the ingenious notion that little pieces of wood shaped
like the thimbles and coated by a dip in rubber were excellent
additions to a cluster.
The pure rubber, when it is made, looks like putty, and has the same
dusky-white colour; but, owing to the balls being kept in the huts
in baskets in the smoke, and in wicker-work cages in the muddy pools
to soak up as much water as possible before going into the hands of
the traders, they get almost inky in colour.
CHAPTER IX. FROM ESOON TO AGONJO.
In which the Voyager sets forth the beauties of the way from Esoon
to N'dorko, and gives some account of the local Swamps.
Our next halting place was Esoon, which received us with the usual
row, but kindly enough; and endeared itself to me by knowing the
Rembwe, and not just waving the arm in the air, in any direction,
and saying "Far, far plenty bad people live for that side," as the
other towns had done. Of course they stuck to the bad people part
of the legend; but I was getting quite callous as to the moral
character of new acquaintances, feeling sure that for good solid
murderous rascality several of my old Fan acquaintances, and even my
own party, would take a lot of beating; and yet, one and all, they
had behaved well to me. Esoon gave me to understand that of all the
Sodoms and Gomorrahs that town of Egaja was an easy first, and it
would hardly believe we had come that way. Still Egaja had dealt
with us well. However I took less interest - except, of course, as a
friend, in some details regarding the criminal career of Chief Blue-
hat of Egaja - in the opinion of Esoon regarding the country we had
survived, than in the information it had to impart regarding the
country we had got to survive on our way to the Big River, which now
no longer meant the Ogowe, but the Rembwe. I meant to reach one of
Hatton and Cookson's sub-factories there, but - strictly between
ourselves - I knew no more at what town that factory was than a
Kindergarten Board School child does. I did not mention this fact;
and a casual observer might have thought that I had spent my youth
in that factory, when I directed my inquiries to the finding out the
very shortest route to it. Esoon shook its head. "Yes, it was
close, but it was impossible to reach Uguma's factory." "Why?"
"There was blood war on the path." I said it was no war of mine.
But Esoon said, such was the appalling depravity of the next town on
the road, that its inhabitants lay in wait at day with loaded guns
and shot on sight any one coming up the Esoon road, and that at
night they tied strings with bells on across the road and shot on
hearing them. No one had been killed since the first party of
Esoonians were fired on at long range, because no one had gone that
way; but the next door town had been heard by people who had been
out in the bush at night, blazing down the road when the bells were
tinkled by wild animals. Clearly that road was not yet really
healthy.
The Duke, who as I have said before, was a fine courageous fellow,
ready to engage in any undertaking, suggested I should go up the
road - alone by myself - first - a mile ahead of the party - and the
next town, perhaps, might not shoot at sight, if they happened to
notice I was something queer; and I might explain things, and then
the rest of the party would follow.
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