This uncommonly useful idol was a rudely-shaped piece of ebony, about two feet high, with a man's face, the nose and eyes of copper, and the body covered with grass.
At last we started for the ebony woods. Our new location was about nine miles from the river, on the side of a long hill, and close by where a cool sparkling rivulet leaped from rock to rock down into the plain, making the pleasantest of music for me as I lay, weak and sick, in the camp. Five huge ebony trees lifted their crowned heads together in a little knot just above us. All around were pleasant and shady woods. It was a very pleasant camp, but proved to have one drawback--we nearly starved to death. I sent out the hunters immediately on our arrival. They were gone two days, but brought back nothing. Game was very scarce there; and, without an _ashinga_, or net, such as many Bakalai villages have, not much was to be got.
HUNTING FOR FOOD--WE KILL A FEMALE NSHIEGO MBOUVÉ--A YOUNG NSHIEGO WITH A WHITE FACE--HE BECOMES MY PET TOMMY--HIS AFFECTION FOR ME--HIS STEALING PRANKS--TOMMY GETS DRUNK--HIS BEHAVIOUR AT MEALS--HIS SUDDEN DEATH--CONCLUSION.
At last I got better. I could not stand hunger and gouamba any longer, and determined to make up a regular hunting party and stay out till we got something to eat. Malaouen told me that if we went off about twenty miles we should come to a better game country. So we started in the direction he pointed out, and where he thought we should find the gorilla, or perhaps the nshiego mbouvé.
The men were covered with greegrees, or fetiches, and had cut their hands for luck. Anguilai told me that his _ogana_ (idol) had told him that to-morrow the heart of the _otanga_ (the white man) would be made glad, for we should kill game.
For some hours after we started we saw nothing but old tracks of different wild beasts, and I began to think that Anguilai's ogana had been too sanguine. Finally towards twelve o'clock, when we were crossing a kind of high table-land, we heard the cry of a young animal, which we recognised to be a nshiego mbouvé. At once all my troubles left me. I no longer felt either sick or hungry.
We crawled through the bush as silently as possible, still hearing the baby-like cry. At last, coming out into a little place where there was very little under-growth, we saw something running along the ground towards where we stood concealed. We hardly dared to breathe, for fear of awakening the animal's suspicions. When it came nearer, we saw it was a female nshiego mbouvé, running on all-fours, with a young one clinging to her breast. She was eagerly eating some berries, while with one arm she supported her little one.