A peculiarity of this day's march was a broad highway, cut and cleared for 3 miles through the undergrowth, which was terminated by a large village of the pigmies, but recently vacated. There were ninety-two huts, which we may take to represent ninety-two families, or thereabouts. There was one hut more pretentious than the others, which possibly was the chief's house. We had seen now about twenty villages of the forest pigmies, but as yet we had only viewed the pretty little woman at Ugarrowwa--the miniature Hebé. Lieutenant Stairs, during his reconnaissance from Ibwiri, had reached West Indenduru, and had left the village standing; but because he had occupied it, the natives had set fire to it after his departure. We observed also that the Balessé seldom ate of the produce of a field twice, and that a plantain grove, after bearing fruit once, is abandoned for another; and a corn plot, after being tilled, sown, and harvested, is left to revert to wilderness. They appear to be continually planting bananas and preparing ground for corn, which accounted for the immense clearings we had passed, and for the thousands of trees that littered the ground in one great ruin. For the bananas or plantains, they simply cut down the underwood and plant the young bulbs in a shallow hole, with sufficient earth to keep it upright. They then cut the forest down, and let the trees lie where they fall. In six months the Musa bulbs have thriven wonderfully under shade and among roots and débris, and grown to 8 feet in height; within a year they have borne fruit. The Indian corn or maize requires sunshine. The trees are cut down well above the buttress, by building scaffolds 10, 15, or even 20 feet high. The logs are cut up, and either split for slabs or lining for the inner and outer walls of their huts, or scooped out for troughs for the manufacture of plantain wine. The branches are piled around the plot to rot; they do not burn them, because that would impoverish the soil, and as the surface is rich in humus, it would burn down to the clay. Considering what great labour is involved in the clearing of a portion of primeval forest, we were tempted to regard the Balessé as very foolish in burning their villages for such a trivial cause as one night's occupation of them by strangers; but it is an instance of the obstinate sullenness of these people. Boryo's village, for instance, could scarcely be constructed under a twelvemonth. The population of the largest village we saw could not exceed 600 souls; but while we wonder at their prejudices, we must award credit to them for great industry and unlimited patience to produce such splendid results as we observed.