And we have more comfort, because, going for a longer time, we make better shelters, and take our hunting-nets and spears with us, and so succeed in getting some fresh animal food. If several of us are in the same part of the forest, it is easy to set up our nets round a herd of wild pigs or some antelopes. Some go in and beat the bush, others wait outside the nets with poised spears, and it is not long before we have some animal for our evening meal. The people who live on the river bank, and have to be always providing wood for passing steamers, or fish and manioca for rations for Bula Matadi’s soldiers and workmen, and fresh meat for his own table, are really worse off in some ways than we who are now on rubber work, because they must take their portion every seven or fifteen days, and if they fail to do so they are imprisoned. Then demands are made of some villages to supply fowls and eggs at odd times and in varying quantities. We wonder sometimes what the white men do with so many eggs; they seem to be always wanting them. One of our people who has frequently to supply eggs says that he thinks the white men must be under the impression that we black men lay eggs the same as fowls do, for they are always calling for them, whether or not the fowls are laying! Now that there are no sentries in our villages the chiefs of the people are expected by the white men to exercise more authority. But during the years of the sentries’ rule the chiefs were divested of every bit of authority, and systematically degraded in the sight of their people. So bad did it become that a chief spent a great part of his time in the chain, or in the bush hiding from the sentries. Naturally the children and young people lost their respect for the chiefs, and many an old man whose word a few years ago was law has found, to his shame and chagrin, that he is considered as of no importance and his word as valueless. Sometimes the old men get into trouble for things that are not really their fault. For instance, a little while ago some one died in a village near the white man’s compound, and, as usual, the people commenced wailing. From evening until far into the night the death wail rang out, and the sound disturbed the white man’s rest. On the next day the chief was arrested and put in prison for not having stopped the noises—and he remained there for three days and nights. He is absolutely dispossessed of his power, no one thinks of obeying him; and yet he is punished for the inevitable outcome of the rule of the sentries in our villages.