up and down the spar deck.  Consequently we all knew Fanny, and it was a great shock when from the custom-house I saw her running around the blazing parade ground, her eyes filled with fear and “lost dog” written all over her, from her drooping tongue to her drooping tail.  Captain Burton and I called “Fanny,” and, not seeking suicide for ourselves, sent half a dozen black boys to catch her.  But Fanny never liked her black uncles; on the steamer the Kroo boys learned to give her the length of her chain, and so we were forced to plunge to her rescue into the valley of heat.  Perhaps she thought we were again going to lock her up on the steamer, or perhaps that it was a friendly game, for she ran from us as fast as from the black boys.  In Matadi no one ever had crossed the parade ground except at a funeral march, and the spectacle of two large white men playing tag with a small fox-terrier attracted an immense audience.  The officials and clerks left work and peered between the iron-barred windows, the “prisoners” in chains ceased breaking rock and stared dumbly from the barracks, the black “sentries” shrieked and gesticulated, the naked bush boys, in from a long caravan journey, rose from the side of their burdens and commented upon our manoeuvres in gloomy, guttural tones.  I suspect they thought we wanted Fanny for “chop.”  Finally Fanny ran into the legs of a German trader, who grabbed her by the neck and held her up to us.

“You want him?  Hey?” he shouted.

“Ay, man,” gasped Burton, now quite purple, “did you think we were trying to amuse the dog?”

I made a leash of my belt, and the captain returned to the ship dragging his prisoner after him.  An hour later I met the youthful missionary leading Fanny by a rope.

“I must tell you about Fanny,” he cried.  “After I took her to the Mission I forgot to tie her up—­as I suppose I should have done—­and she ran away.  But, would you believe it, she found her way straight back to the ship.  Was it not intelligent of her?”

I was too far gone with apoplexy, heat prostration, and sunstroke to make any answer, at least one that I could make to a missionary.

The next morning Fanny, the young missionary, and I left for Leopoldville on the railroad.  It is a narrow-gauge railroad built near Matadi through the solid rock and later twisting and turning so often that at many places one can see the track on three different levels.  It is not a State road, but was built and is owned by a Dutch company, and, except that it charges exorbitant rates and does not keep its carriages clean, it is well run, and the road-bed is excellent.  But it runs a passenger train only three times a week, and though the distance is so short, and though the train starts at 6:30 in the morning, it does not get you to Leopoldville the same day.  Instead, you must rest over night at Thysville and start at seven the next morning.  That afternoon at three you reach Leopoldville.  For the two