After looking around I walked out without speaking. I made a bold guess as to the sick and the well; and returning a few minutes later, followed by several workmen with the loads, I advanced as if by some occult means I knew exactly the degree of sincerity or insincerity on the part of each, and placed the heaviest load in front of a certain man, saying quietly: “You will carry this load.” Now it happened that this was the only sick man in the crowd and he was quite unfit to carry anything. The truth is that the man, being really sick, did not call in the assistance of dramatic art, and he made less fuss than any of the others. We were not many hours on the way before I discovered the mistake I had made. It is very difficult to make any change on the road, and is regarded as something less than fair. To accomplish it without a mutiny one must assume a terrifying countenance of the utmost ferocity and cannibalism. In this I was evidently successful; for late in the afternoon I suddenly called a halt, waited until all the men came up, and then ordered a man to take the load off the back of the sick man and put it on the man who that morning had been seized with a fit at my approach. This I did with the more relish because I had heard him chuckling about it along the way and telling the joke on the white man. We seldom saw an animal in the forest, although we knew they were there. The only monkey that we saw on our first journey Mr. Kerr shot and gave to the carriers who ate every part of it, inside and out, including the skin—after burning off the hair. We sometimes heard the blood-curdling night-cry of the leopard; but we never saw one. On several occasions when I was alone I heard elephants plunging along the path before me, or suddenly discovered their tracks at my feet, so fresh that the water was still trickling into them. The elephant is not dangerous unless one comes upon him suddenly and startles or frightens him; but if he “charges,” he is terrible. A chief near Efulen was one day walking in the forest at the head of a hunting party. At a point where the path suddenly swerved around the upturned root of a tree, he found himself face to face with an elephant. Before he had time to fire the elephant instantly charged. It put its tusk through his body and then trampled him to death under its feet. The natives taught me, when I heard elephants ahead, to stop and shout until there was complete silence; which meant that they had hidden in the forest and I could pass along the path in perfect safety, no matter how near they might be. But the first time that this occurred, and the second time, I made the natives prove their advice by going ahead themselves, which they never hesitated to do.