"I should think, sir," said Venning, "the fact of his totem being an
otter proves that his tribe derives its living mainly from fish."

"That is plausible; but it may, again, be a sign of chieftainship,
and a chief I have no doubt he is. Maybe he was sent adrift by some
rival faction; but that can scarcely be, for he would not have
survived a long journey; and, again, the canoe would have gone
aground."

"There is another explanation," said Compton, with a grin. "He may
not have come down the river at all. He may have been set adrift
from one of those ships we passed for insubordination."

"Ships do not carry canoes or jackals," said Venning, who had made
up his mind that the castaway was from the forest, and from nowhere
else.

They went down to breakfast, and the morning was occupied in getting
their kit and packages together. At noon the steamer was berthed at
a pier, and their packages were transferred to a paddle-wheeler,
which was to take them over three hundred miles up the wide estuary
to a Belgian station. Thence, perhaps, they would proceed hundreds
of miles further by another river steamer before they took to their
own boat.

"Why, we may be days before we really get to work," said Venning,
when the vastness of the Congo was forced on his attention by a
casual reference to "hundreds of miles."