When we first went among them our safety was in their fetishism and this we had counted upon. However kindly they may have felt, yet to them our poor bundles of goods were fabulous wealth; and it was our opinion then and afterwards that greed would have completely mastered them and they would have killed us for our goods if they had dared. Dr. Good, as I have said, had lived for years among the Fang, whose language is so much like the Bulu that he could understand the Bulu from the first, although he did not always let them know this. In the first Bulu town where we stayed over night Dr. Good heard them discussing us. The younger men were greatly excited and might have proved dangerous but for the counsel of the older men, who are always held in high respect. These elders argued that since we three strangers, with a few unarmed followers, had left our own tribe and had come boldly among them we must surely have very powerful fetishes—powerful enough to overcome theirs and inflict death on our enemies. Our very goods which they coveted was evidence of this; for it is only by fetishes that people acquire riches. Further evidence was afforded by the fact that we had meat in tins which our boys told them had been there for two years and it was not rotten. They had seen it, and it smelled delicious. But the convincing proof was Mr. Kerr’s gun, the most beautiful thing that ever had been seen, and which, according to the report of the boys, was never known to miss aim (which indeed was a fact when Mr. Kerr held it) and everybody knows that this depends entirely upon a man’s fetishes. These sage counsels prevailed. And before this belief in our fetishes and the fear of them was dissipated we had gained their friendship, and were safe on that basis.