In the interval of my absence, the man of Ikala who had given me his boy, repenting of his goodness (the only thing the savage ever repents of), had followed me up the river with several friends, all armed, and had stolen the boy from the launch. Nor did he even have the good manners to leave the two inches of soap that I had given him. Next morning before breakfast I again landed, hoping by more substantial eloquence to persuade the woman of Mfu. For the boy, whose name was _Mfega_, was a very manly little fellow and wanted to come as much as I wanted to have him. I took with me a pair of bright, brass arm-rings that had cost seven cents—the largest present I ever made for the purpose. I turned them about in the sunlight as I passed her house, and indifferently rattled them. After a while I went straight to her house and offered her the rings for the boy. Notwithstanding Paul’s contempt, I found the eloquence of sounding brass more persuasive than the tongue of an angel, which I had before assumed. She surrendered him to me, not even prescribing how he should be cooked. Mfega returned to his town after several months and he taught these same people to sing our hymns and told them many things he had learned about the true God; and my reception ever after that was friendly and cordial. I then crossed the river to another town, called _Fula_, where the government had lately established a post, which was in charge of two black soldiers of Senegal, imported by the French. I visited in Fula a while and then set out to a bush-town, or group of towns, called _Nkol Amvam_, more than two hours from the river. I have said elsewhere that there is no such thing as a _mile_ in Africa, and that periods of time are used as terms of linear distance. The road was at the very worst, much of the way knee-deep in mud, for it was the wet season. The boys called it _ebol nzen_—_a rotten road_. The part of one that was above ground was kept moist by the dripping undergrowth that met across the path, which was also full of thorns and briers. Seldom had I travelled on any such road, and not at all since the days, long past, when I had walked with Dr. Good in the Bulu interior. I had now been in Africa a long time, and this road was almost too much for me. I had with me for guide one of my schoolboys, Mendam, who lived in a town a little further down the river. Mendam was one of the characters of the school, independent and original, a chucklesome boy with the best laugh in the school. Mendam thought that the walk over such a road was too much for “his white man” in his present state of health, and I was touched by the feeling of regard and sympathy that he showed. We came to a running stream almost to our knees, clear and cool, so grateful and refreshing that I halted and stood in the middle of it for some time, quite tired. Immediately Mendam was on his knees washing the mud off my feet and trousers.