“For some time we have been thinking that in every camp of ours there is nothing but graves, and dying and burying. There has been no meat, nor salt, nor dripping, nor gravy. There has been manioc, always manioc, and no more. But if the gullet be dry, what will drive the food down the passage? If the stomach is filled with loathing it requires a little gravy or dripping to make the food palatable. “We knew that in a few weeks we were to leave here for Stanley Falls, or for up the river, and we had made up our minds to leave the white men’s service--every one of us. There has been death among us, it is here still, and no one knows what is the cause of it. I myself don’t quite believe that it is because we are working for white men, but there are some of us who do. But we were all agreed until you came that we had seen enough of it. There is another thing I wished to say, and that is--we have wondered why we who belong to the Continent should die, and white men who are strangers to it should live. When we were on the Congo and on other journeys it was the white men who died, and not we. Now it is we who die, a hundred blacks for one white. No, master, the cause of death is in the food. The white men had meat of goat, and fowls, and fish; we have had nothing but manioc and therefore died. I have spoken my say.” “Well, it is my turn to talk. I have been listening, and thinking, and everything seems clear to me. You say that manioc was your food at Yambuya, and that it made you sick and your men died?” “Yes.” “And you say that the men of Bolobo when they come to Yambuya were in good condition?” “Yes.” “But that afterwards they became sick and died also?” “Yes.” “What did the men of Bolobo eat when there?” “Chikwanga.” “Well, what is chikwanga but bread made out of manioc?” “That is true.” “Did you make it into bread?” “Some of us.” “And some of you have lived. Now the truth of the matter is this. You went out into the fields, and gathered the manioc tubers, the finest and best. And you cut some leaves of manioc and brought them in, to bruise them and make greens. This manioc is of the bitter kind. This bitterness which you taste in it is poison. It would not only kill a few hundreds. It would kill a whole race. “As you peeled the tubers, you cut raw slices and ate them, you pounded your greens and as ‘kitowêo,’ you ate them also. These are two instances in which you took poison.