performance took place every day, unless an officer was constantly on
the watch, the foolish fellows in their attempts to shirk duty brought
upon themselves extra work. The cabins were unfurnished, for everyone
carries his own bed on the Congo, and most also their own tent. It was
therefore necessary to unpack a bed. Here was a difficulty. All the bags
and boxes were carefully numbered by the Army and Navy Stores and the
invoice no doubt sent to my London address but I left before it arrived,
and there was no possibility of discovering which number meant bed.
Seizing a likely looking bale, the boys unlace it, and find a part of a
tent, and a second attempt brings to light another part of a tent. It is
now growing dark and a light is necessary, but in which of these seventy
odd cases is the lamp? Not knowing the native mind, I explain that it is
necessary to hurry and find the bed before dark. This evidently conveys
no meaning at all to the boys, for in the first place it was not their
bed and so it mattered nothing to them, and in the second, they had
never hurried before in their lives, and could not do so now, even if
they wished. Lacing the first bales up slowly and deliberately, they
open another and find a canvas bath and washhandstand. These are at any
rate useful, and encouraged by success we try again and come across
hand-irons and starch. At length we find a thing like a large concertina
which is really a folding bed with pillows and blankets, complete. By
great good luck a mosquito curtain is then found and the steward kindly
lends a candle.

Hot, sticky, tired and cross we prepare for our first meal on a Congo
steamer. It consisted of a soup of mystery, chicken, which had been
washed in the river close to a group of natives bathing and a goat,
killed an hour before dinner, whose flesh was thrown quivering into the
pot. However, there was some bread and tinned peaches and it was no use
being fastidious in Central Africa. This was washed down with the