Nevertheless, half an hour after Ndong Koni had gone, when I was ready to start, this saint among savages was missing. I called him and hunted for him in vain; nor could I get a man to take his place. The people told me that he had gone ahead of me in a canoe and was waiting for me at their fishing-camp a short distance down the river—which I knew to be false for the simple reason that they said it was true. I asked them to show me the man’s house, but no one seemed to know in which house he lived. His own brothers could not tell me. A bribe of a dose of salts was sufficient to induce the chief to lead the way to the man’s house. The door was a large piece of bark propped from the inside. It yielded to a vigorous push so easily that I was precipitated into the house headlong, my feet catching as I passed through the door and my helmet as usual rolling into the ashes. The man, I believe, was hidden within, but I did not search for him. I seized a large earthen jug, used by the women for carrying water and counted a valuable possession, and started off for the river, the whole town at my heels, making a deafening uproar. Many were in violent remonstrance and others were laughing. I took the jug aboard the boat and ordered the boys to push off. We were getting under weigh when the missing man appeared upon the bank. But the saint had reverted to the savage, and was nothing but an ordinary cannibal threatening to cut me into small pieces and eat me. While the boat moved slowly towards the middle of the river I talked with him and told him that if he wanted the jug he would have to keep his agreement. He at length offered to go on condition that I would send the jug ashore as soon as he came aboard and not take it to Gaboon, for it belonged to his wife. I agreed to this proposition. He probably intended, when the jug was at a safe distance, to leap overboard and swim ashore. But once I had him in my grip I decided to take no chances lest his noble character might suffer another relapse. I made him lie down on his back in the bottom of the boat beneath the thwarts, and I seated myself on his stomach. The whole population of the town was on the bank, and rending the air with laughter, in which even the man’s wives joined. So we put off down the river.