The grey parrots fly home in the evenings in great flocks, whistling and screaming, the happiest birds there are. There is an endless variety of bird-life, which as the mating season nears dons brighter and more striking colouring. Not very promising was the aspect which the wild people dwelling on the banks of the Congo River presented to Mr. Stanley during the first journey through these unknown regions. As he approached a village, the great war drums and horns thundered through the woods, canoes were manned, and, apparently without the remotest reason, they proceeded to attack the white man with his little flock. Fierce, wild savagery, loathsome cannibalism, cruelty, the densest darkness and degradation of heathenism--such was the aspect as the two white men, with some one hundred and fifty followers, endeavoured quietly and peaceably to paddle in midstream past the villages. [Illustration: NGOMBE WARRIOR.] We have talked with these folk about this humiliating phase of humanity. ‘Why did you attack the _mundele_ (white man)?’ ‘We did not, but we were going to.’ ‘Why? Sit down, and tell us all about it.’ This to a Zombo slave of the Bayansi of Bolobo, who had been sold by his countrymen for ivory, when scarcely more than a baby. His forehead scored with the tribal mark of his master, he was in bearing and speech a thorough Mubangi, but remembered his old language, as there are many such slaves on the upper river. ‘The news reached us,’ he said, ‘that a white man and his followers were coming down the river. Every one above us had attacked him for the honour and glory of having fought one of the mysterious whites we hear of, and for whose cloth we trade. We could not let the opportunity pass; had we done so, we should have been behind the rest, and become the ridicule of the river. When we went to trade, and joined the dance in friendly towns, the girls would sing how their braves had fought the white man, while the Bolobo people had hidden in the grass like women. We manned our canoes, and hid behind the long point above our town; but a little above us the white man crossed to the other side of the river. We waited to see what would happen, and soon one of our people came from the opposite towns, and told us that the white man was buying food, and giving beads, brass wire, and glorious things. We quickly filled our canoes with plaintain, cassava pudding, fowls, etc., and hurried over, and so we did not fight after all.’ That was the beginning of better days for Mr. Stanley. The story as we heard it at Stanley Pool explains in a measure the persistent savage attacks. Since November, 1882, there has been a station of the International Association at Bolobo; and the Congo Mission is hoping shortly to occupy that populous district. * * * * *