The usual beginning of a war is the stealing of a woman, as I have said; but this does not always lead to war and the shedding of blood. Nearer the coast milder measures of retaliation are often preferred, and when a woman is stolen the offended town will capture one of the other side and keep him prisoner until the woman is returned. The solidarity of the village in the native mind is impressed upon one continually. They also capture persons of a village in which some one owes them a dowry which he is reluctant to pay. In all such matters the whole village is held responsible for each one of its inhabitants. Many a time, travelling on the river, I have been about to call at a town when one of my crew in alarm has told me that there was a palaver between that town and his town and he dare not enter there. At the next town another one of the crew may raise the same objection; and another at the next. After a thorough trial I had to depend almost entirely on men of the coast rather than the Fang, for at least the first two years. It was not a cowardly imagination on the part of my Fang crew; they were in real danger. On one occasion one of my Fang boys, Ndong Koni, my best helper and most devoted friend, accompanied me to a certain Fang town with which his people had a palaver. He had not a vestige of fear in him and he told me nothing about it, but depended upon my presence for his safety. When I was about to hold a service in the street I observed that the people were muttering in anger, and at last there was an outburst of wrath which, as I saw in a moment, was directed against Ndong Koni. A “sister” of Ndong Koni, who as a matter of fact was not nearer than a second cousin, having married a man in this town, had recently run away from a brutal husband, and her people had not yet made her return, or, unwilling to send her back, had not yet returned the dowry. The proposition was to seize Ndong Koni and put him in stocks until the palaver should be settled. Once they should lay hands upon him nothing could be done to restrain them; for when degraded and ignorant people have committed one hostile act they become excited and violent; they are then a mob. I hurried to Ndong Koni’s side and with him I stepped back from the crowd while I addressed them and presented various arguments. [Illustration: NDONG KONI. _The first, the most faithful and the bravest of all my African friends._]