It was in this region that Du Chaillu hunted the gorilla and gathered much of the material for his famous books. An interior chief, in appreciation of Du Chaillu’s visit to his town, once presented him with a fat slave; and when Du Chaillu kindly declined the offer, protesting that he would not know what to do with him, the chief exclaimed in astonishment: “You must kill him and eat him, of course.” Du Chaillu spat violently upon the ground—the African way of expressing disgust and abhorrence. “Then,” said the bewildered chief, “what do you do with all our people who are sent down the river and far away to your country? We have believed that you fatten them and eat them.” It is supposed that our present mission station was formerly the site of a slave pen, where slaves were kept until they were shipped—a _barracoon_; hence the name _Baraka_. The slave-traffic was succeeded by the rum-traffic; and it would not be easy to say which of the two has proved the greater evil for Africa. There is more drunkenness in Gaboon, among the Mpongwe, than in most places on the coast. Except among the few Christians, an abundance of rum is used at every marriage and every funeral and both men and women drink to drunkenness. The women drink as much as the men, and there are a greater number of hopeless dipsomaniacs among them. One day, as I was walking along the beach, I met a bright-looking Mpongwe woman who surprised me by addressing me in English. I was eager to know who she was. She said her name was Elida Harrington, and that when she was very young the wife of one of our missionaries, for whom she had been working, took her to America when she went on furlough and that during the period of the furlough she had attended school in America. Those early days were evidently a sweet memory, and Elida’s face was aglow with pleasure as she told me. Finally I asked her why I had never seen her at the mission. The glow faded from her face, and after a moment of gloomy silence she replied: “You’ll know soon enough.” I afterwards learned that Elida, when she was young, was married to a man who was given to _nagging_. He was continually making petty and groundless charges of infidelity against his wife. There is no surer way to inspire the dislike of the African. They are wonderfully generous in forgiving impulsive cruelty, but continual nagging will alienate them. At last, just to spite her husband, Elida told him that all his charges were true; that she had done all those things, and much worse—such things as he had never thought of charging against her. Her husband, when he recovered from a paroxysm of rage and astonishment, told her to pack her things and leave his house; to which she quietly replied that she would be glad to do so, since she had already decided upon that very course.