But reputation as a linguist is easily
made in these regions by speaking a few common sentences. The
gorilla-hunter evidently had only a colloquial acquaintance with
the half-dozen various idioms of the Mpongwe and Mpangwe (Fan)
Bakele, Shekyani, and Cape Lopez people. Yet, despite verbal
inaccuracies, his facility of talking gave him immense advantages
over other whites, chiefly in this, that the natives would deem
it useless to try the usual tricks upon travellers.
Forteune is black, short, and "trapu;" curls of the jettiest
lanugo invest all his outward man; bunches of muscle stand out
from his frame like the statues of Crotonian Milo; his legs are
bandy; his hands and feet are large and patulous, and he wants
only a hunch to make an admirable Quasimodo. He has the frank and
open countenance of a sportsman--I had been particularly warned
by the Plateau folk about his skill in cheating and lying.
Formerly a cook at the Gaboon, he is a man of note in his tribe,
as the hunter always is; he holds the position of a country
gentleman, who can afford to write himself M.F.H.; he is looked
upon as a man of valour; he is admired by the people, and he is
adored by his wives--one of them at once took up her station upon
the marital knee.
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