if rigor mortis once sets in, it is impossible to alter the position assumed by the head and wings.  There were great numbers of beautiful birds in the plantation and it was easy to obtain over a dozen different specimens in less than an hour[3].  Red-legged partridges are also found here in the rice, but as in Europe this variety will not rise and one may walk all day hearing the familiar call on all sides and only obtain one or two shots.

On October 19th I had my first attack of fever, which was not severe and soon yielded to phenacetin.  It was however, rather a disappointment for I had taken five grains of quinine regularly every day since arriving in the Congo.  The fever ran the same course that it used to do in India ten years ago but as it only once appeared in England during that period, I hoped it had gone for ever.  Hundreds of mosquitoes hummed around with the ambitious idea presumably of carrying the germs to some other unfortunate.

[Illustration:  THE RIVER NEAR BANZYVILLE.]

As we shall now leave the French frontier and travel altogether in State territory we send the Senegalese escort down the river back to their station at Mobaie.  The sergeant who was in charge was a most responsible man and was evidently held in great respect by the Chiefs of the French villages through which we passed.  One day a Chief was greatly disturbed because two men from his village had migrated into State territory.  Although this is against the law it is apparently not a very unusual occurrence.  Generally these emigrants have committed some crime and are fleeing from justice.  One Chief, however, at Banzyville stated he had left the State territory because he objected to working rubber and had returned because he objected still more to paying the tax in the French Congo.  It is impossible indeed to say which side gains by this emigration but it is very evident that it is not altogether one-sided and not great enough to affect seriously the size of the population of either the French or Free State Congo.

In Yakoma the people are paid chiefly by beads and salt and it is interesting to watch the long string of workers filing to the office of the Chef du Poste on Saturday, each one carrying a plate, a tin can or some other receptacle in which to receive his wages.

On October 22nd we decide to pack up and move on.  The skins of the larger birds the toucans, razor-bills and serpent birds are keeping very badly but those of the monkeys, leopards and antelopes are in better condition.  It is however, doubtful if they will last, for to preserve them it is necessary to hang them out in the sun every day which is obviously impossible when travelling.  As a small native war is in progress higher up the Uele, Mr. Van Luttens kindly arranges to accompany us for the first three days in order to ensure that relays of paddlers shall be forthcoming for many of those gentlemen have forsaken the wooden blade for the iron lance.  We are therefore