The leopard was hardly on the ground before we rushed in with our knives. A heavy blow of the axe partly severed his head from his neck. We cut off his tail to take it back to town, and then took his claws off, to give them to Olenda for a necklace. The leopard was cut in pieces, and we lighted a big fire, or, rather, several big fires. This leopard was fat--very fat, but smelt very strong--awfully so. The ribs looking the best, I thought I would try them and have some cutlets--real leopard cutlets. I flattened them and pounded them with the axe in order to make them tender. By that time the fire had burned up well, so I took from it a lot of bright burning charcoal, and put my cutlets on it. The cutlets soon afterward began to crisp; the fat dropped down on the charcoal, and a queer fragrance filled the atmosphere round. Then I put on the cutlets a little salt I had with me, rubbed them with some Cayenne pepper, and immediately after I began to go into them in earnest. The meat was strong, and had an odor of musk, which was very disagreeable. I found it so at the third cutlet, and when I had done I took some salt in my mouth, mixed with Cayenne pepper, in order to see if I could not get rid of the taste; I could not. I wished then that the leopard had been some other animal. This hard work, starvation, and wet at nights, began to tell upon me. Besides, I had made no discoveries, and I began to wish that I had listened to friend Olenda. His sarcastic and hollow laugh came back to me. His prophetic words, "I tell you, Moguizi, that no one ever ascended the Nkoumou-Nabouali," were remembered. I began to feel weaker and weaker, and when I awoke two days after killing the leopard, I rose with difficulty from my bed of leaves. We set forward without breakfast. I dared not send men in the forest for berries; we must be contented with those we should find on our route, for every hour was precious, and they might not find any, after all. So we walked on with empty stomachs, longing for a sight of the Ashira country. I could not be mistaken; my compass was in good order; I had taken into account its variation. We were going south, if not right straight, at least in a general southern direction. On, and on, and on, through the gloomy jungle, no man saying a word to the other, and every man looking anxiously for the first sight of prairie-land, which, with my diseased brain, weakened by hunger, was to me like a fairy-land.