: The Boy Travellers on the Congo Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey with Henry M. Stanley Through the Dark Continent by Knox Thomas Wallace Stanley Henry M Henry Morton - Biographical fiction; Animals Juvenile fiction; Conduct of life Juvenile fiction;

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Not silently; on the contrary, there is a loud interchange of comments upon the white's appearance; a manifestation of broad interest to know whence I come, whither I am going, and what is my business. And no sooner are the questions asked than they are replied to by such as pretend to know. The replies were followed by long-drawn ejaculations of 'Wa-a-a-antu!' 'Eha-a, and these are men!'

"Now imagine this! While we whites are loftily disputing among ourselves as to whether the beings before us are human, here were these creatures actually expressing strong doubts as to whether we whites are men!

"A dead silence prevailed for a short time, during which all the females dropped their lower jaws far down, and then cried out again 'Wa-a-a-a-a-antu!' The lower jaws, indeed, dropped so low that, when, in a posture of reflection, they put their hands up to their chins, it really looked as if they had done so to lift the jaws up to their proper place and to sustain them there. And in that position they pondered upon the fact that there were men 'white all over' in this queer, queer world!

"The open mouths gave one a chance to note the healthy state and ruby color of the tongues, palates, and gums, and, above all, the admirable order and brilliant whiteness of each set of teeth.

"'Great events from trivial causes spring'--and while I was trying to calculate how many Kubaba of millet-seed would be requisite to fill all these hutch-oven mouths, and how many cowries would be required to pay for such a large quantity of millet, and wondering at the antics of the juveniles of the population, whose uncontainable, irrepressible wonder seemed to find its natural expression in hopping on one leg, thrusting their right thumbs into their mouths to repress the rising scream, and slapping their thighs to express or give emphasis to what was speechless--while thus engaged, and just thinking it was time to depart, it happened that one of the youthful innocents already described, more restless than his brothers, stumbled across a long, heavy pole which was leaning insecurely against one of the trees. The pole fell, striking one of my men severely on the head. And all at once there went up from the women a genuine and unaffected cry of pity, and their faces expressed so lively a sense of tender sympathy with the wounded man, that my heart, keener than my eyes, saw, through the disguise of filth, nakedness, and ochre, the human heart beating for another's suffering, and I then recognized and hailed them as indeed my own poor and degraded sisters.

"Under the new light which had dawned on me, I reflected that I had done some wrong to my dusky relatives, and that they might have been described less harshly, and introduced to the world with less disdain.

"Before I quitted the village they made me still more regret my former haughty feelings, for the chief and his subjects loaded my men with bounties of bananas, chickens, Indian corn, and malafu , and escorted me respectfully far beyond the precincts of the village and their fields, parting from me at last with the assurance that, should I ever happen to return by their country, they would endeavor to make my second visit to Uhombo much more agreeable than my first had been.

"On the 5th of October our march from Uhombo brought us to the frontier village of Manyema, which is called Riba-Riba. It is noteworthy as the starting-point of another order of African architecture. The conical style of hut is exchanged for the square hut with more gradually-sloping roof, wattled, and sometimes neatly plastered with mud; especially those in Manyema. Here, too, the thin-bodied and long-limbed goat, to which we had been accustomed, gave place to the short-legged, large bodied, and capacious-uddered variety of Manyema. The gray parrots with crimson tails here also first began to abound, and the hoarse growl of the fierce and shy 'soko' was first heard.

"As we increase the distance from the Tanganika we find the land disposed in graceful lines and curves; ridges heave up, separating valley from valley, hills lift their heads in the midst of the basins and mountain-ranges, at greater distances apart, bound wide prospects, wherein the lesser hill-chains, albeit of dignified proportions, appear but as agreeable diversities of scenery.

"Over the whole, Nature has flung a robe of verdure of the most fervid tints. She has bidden the mountains loose their streamlets, has commanded the hills and ridges to bloom, filled the valleys with vegetation breathing perfume; for the rocks she has woven garlands of creepers, and the stems of trees she has draped with moss; and sterility she has banished from her domain.

"Yet Nature has not produced a soft, velvety, smiling England in the midst of Africa. Far from it. She is here too robust and prolific. Her grasses are coarse, and wound like knives and needles; her reeds are tough and tall as bamboos; her creepers and convolvuli are of cable thickness and length; her thorns are books of steel; her trees shoot up to a height of a hundred feet. We find no pleasure in straying in search of wild-flowers, and game is left undisturbed, because of the difficulty of moving about, for, once the path is left, we find ourselves over head among thick, tough, unyielding, lacerating grass.

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