At a little distance from the village there stood, under a grove of trees, a hideous idol, at the top of a stout post. It was elaborately carved, representing rather the face of an ape than that of a man, and covered with red, yellow, and black paint. The hunters placed some of the meat of the giraffe before it, on a block of stone; but only a small quantity, and that of the least valuable parts. I guessed by this that they had no great respect for their idol. "Poor people," said Natty, "perhaps they guess that they can cheat even it, and that it will not be able to distinguish between the best and worst parts." Natty and I were also tempted to stop. He made signs to the chief, touching his own ears, and then shaking his head and pointing to the ears of the idol, to signify that it could not hear. Then he pointed to its mouth, and in the same way tried to explain that it could not eat the meat placed before it. Then he touched its head, to show that it could not understand. We fancied that the chief comprehended his meaning, for he laughed, and cast a contemptuous look at the ugly block. Although he did this, however, in our presence, it is possible that he still had some superstitious fear of the idol, or of the evil spirit it might have been intended to represent. "The poor Africans have no knowledge of the powerful, kind, and merciful God," observed Natty. "The beings to whom they pay respect they believe to be malign spirits, who will do them harm if they do not attempt to propitiate them by gifts and observances." I may observe here that we never paid the slightest respect to the negro idols, and never were treated worse in consequence; indeed, I believe that they would have despised us if we had done so, for though they may fancy that their idols have something to do with them, they believe that they have no power over the white men. There was great rejoicing in the village on the arrival of the flesh of the giraffe, the greater portion of which was consumed long before the night was over. While seated with the chief, I again asked him to let us go, and he seemed to intimate that he would do so the following morning. While we were at supper, Natty proposed that we should hide as much food as would last us for the following day. "A good idea," I observed. The pockets of our shooting-jackets were capacious. Whenever the chief was looking another way, we contrived to slip in large pieces of meat and cassava cake, besides pieces of plantain. They made somewhat of a mess in our pockets, but we could not be particular. As the chief consumed double as much as we hid away he was not surprised at the rapid disappearance of the food, and had not observed our manoeuvre. Natty and I lay down to rest, hoping that before another sunset we might be far on our way homewards. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. OUR ESCAPE AND JOURNEY THROUGH THE WILDERNESS. I awoke just as day broke, and roused up Natty.