These people carry on the shoulder, not as Africans always
should do, on the head: they even cross the fallen trunks which
act as rickety bridges, with one side of the body thus heavier
than the other.
The bush-path began by wheeling westward, as though we were
returning to Anenge-nenge; thence it struck south-eastwards, a
rhumb from which it rarely deviated. Though we were approaching
the sub-ranges of the Sierra del Crystal, the country was very
like that about Mbata; streamlets flowing to the Mbokwe, wet
yellow soil forming slippery muds, unhealthy as unpleasant in the
morning sunshine; old and new clearings and plantations, mostly
of bananas, mere spots in the wide expanse of bush, and deserted
or half-inhabited villages. Shortly after noon we came to a
battle-field, where the heroes of Tippet-town had chanced to fall
in with their foes of Auta, a settlement distant eight or nine
miles. Both armies at once "tree'd" themselves behind trunks, and
worked at long bowls, the "bushmen," having only one gun and two
charges, lost four of their men, and the victors, who had no time
to carry off the slain, contented themselves with an arm or two
by way of gigot.
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