evening to cook his food.

Next day we reach Dongo, a village situated on a hill perhaps 200 feet
high. After looking at flat forest for weeks, this appears a veritable
mountain and it seems quite a stiff climb up the rough path constructed
as usual only by the feet of the people who have used it. Mr. Vannini,
an Italian officer, is constructing a Post here with the aid of some ten
or fifteen soldiers. Dongo is a very large village containing perhaps
3000 people and the huts are arranged in streets running parallel to
each other with their ends towards the river. The physique of the people
is very good indeed, some of the men being more than six feet in height.
The women mostly wear copper collars, three inches high and with a
second horizontal collar attached on the outside. The whole is hammered
on and must be intensely uncomfortable. A special pillow, consisting of
a piece of wood hollowed out for the head is necessary, as sleep would
otherwise be impossible with such a contrivance round the neck. A great
number of children run about and seem to be well nourished. Some have
large heads and protruding stomachs, without however, other signs of
_rickets_. Many of the men are painted with yellow stripes, an
indication that they have killed their man in battle, and these donned
their fighting clothes of many colours and with shields and spears posed
to be photographed, dancing around and uttering wild war whoops. A human
skull partly buried in the middle of a road is evidently a souvenir of
the terrible orgy which followed some recent encounter. Indeed all the
people here are cannibals and those killed or captured in war, except
women and children, are always eaten. When not fighting, the people
fish, collect rubber, grow kwanga and generally work fairly well and are
not troublesome. Mr. Vannini, however, evidently thinks it safer to
erect a high stockade around his house and the huts of the soldiers.
This is a wise precaution, as only a few months ago four French traders