Part 30 (2/2)

The next week pa.s.sed without special incident, excepting that one afternoon the whole party went hunting, bringing down a large quant.i.ty of birds, and several small animals, including an antelope, which to the boys looked like a Maine deer excepting for the peculiar formation of its horns.

”I wonder how Mr. Blaze is making out?” said Tom, when they were returning to camp from the hunt.

”Oh, I reckon he is blasting away at game,” laughed Sam, and Tom at once groaned over the attempted joke.

”Perhaps we will meet him some day--if he's in this territory,”

put in d.i.c.k. ”But just now I am looking for n.o.body but father.”

”And so are all of us,” said Tom and Sam promptly.

They were getting deeper and deeper into the jungle and had to take good care that they did not become separated. Yet Cujo said he understood the way perfectly and often proved his words by mentioning something which they would soon reach, a stream, a little lake, or a series of rocks with a tiny waterfall.

”Been ober dis ground many times,” said the guide.

”I suppose this is the ground Stanley covered in his famous expedition along the Congo,” remarked d.i.c.k, as they journeyed along. ”But who really discovered the country, Uncle Randolph?”

”That is a difficult question to answer, d.i.c.k. The Portuguese, the Spanish, and the French all claim that honor, along with the English. I fancy different sections, were discovered by different nationalities. This Free State, you know, is controlled by half a dozen nations.”

”I wonder if the country will ever be thoroughly civilized?”

”It will take a long while, I am afraid. Christianity will have to come first. Many of the tribes in Africa are, you must remember, without any form of religion whatever, being even worse than what we call heathens, who wors.h.i.+p some sort of a G.o.d.”

”Don't they believe in anything?” asked Sam.

”Nothing, Sam. And their morality is of the lowest grade in consequence. They murder and steal whenever the chance offers, and when they think the little children too much care for them they pitch them into the rivers for the crocodiles to feed upon.”

”The beasts!” murmured Tom. ”Well, I reckon at that rate, civilization can't come too quick, even if it has to advance behind bayonets and cannon.”

CHAPTER XXII

A HURRICANE IN THE JUNGLE

On and on went the expedition. In the past many small towns and villages had been visited where there were more or less white people; but now they reached a territory where the blacks held full sway, with--but this was rarely--a Christian missionary among them.

At all of the places which were visited Cujo inquired about King Susko and his people, and at last learned that the African had pa.s.sed to the southeast along the Ka.s.sai River, driving before him several hundred head of cattle which he had picked up here and there.

”Him steal dat cattle,” explained Cujo, ”but him don't say dat stealin', him say um--um--”

”A tax on the people?” suggested d.i.c.k.

”Yes, um tax. But him big Vief.”

”He must be, unless he gives the people some benefit for the tax they are forced to pay,” said Tom.

At one of the villages they leaned that there was another American Party in that territory, one sent out by an Eastern college to collect specimens of the flora of central Africa. It was said that the party consisted of an elderly man and half a dozen young fellows.

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