various symptoms; ulcers of course galore; a man with a bit of a broken spear head in an abscess in the thigh; one which I believe a professional enthusiast would call a "lovely case" of filaria, the entire white of one eye being full of the active little worms and a ridge of surplus population migrating across the bridge of the nose into the other eye, under the skin, looking like the bridge of a pair of spectacles. It was past eleven before I had anything like done, and my men had long been sound asleep, but the chief had conscientiously sat up and seen the thing through. He then went and fetched some rolls of bark cloth to put on my plank, and I gave him a handsome cloth I happened to have with me, a couple of knives, and some heads of tobacco and wished him good-night; blockading my bark door, and picking my way over my sleeping Ajumba into an inner apartment which I also blockaded, hoping I had done with Egaja for some hours. No such thing. At 1.45 the whole town was roused by the frantic yells of a woman. I judged there was one of my beauties of Fans mixed up in it, and there was, and after paying damages, got back again by 2.30 A.M., and off to sleep again instantly. At four sharp, whole town of Egaja plunged into emotion, and worse shindy. I suggested to the Ajumba they should go out; but no, they didn't care a row of pins if one of our Fans did get killed, so I went, recognising Kiva's voice in high expostulation. Kiva, it seems, a long time ago had a transaction in re a tooth of ivory with a man who, unfortunately, happened to be in this town to-night, and Kiva owed the said man a coat.[1]
Kiva, it seems, has been spending the whole evening demonstrating to his creditor that, had he only known they were to meet, he would have brought the coat with him—a particularly beautiful coat—and the reason he has not paid it before is that he has mislaid the creditor's address. The creditor says he has called repeatedly at Kiva's village, that notorious M'fetta, and Kiva has never been at home; and moreover that Kiva's wife (one of them) stole a yellow dog of great value from his (the creditor's) canoe. Kiva says, women will be women, and he had gone off to sleep thinking
- ↑ An European coat or its equivalent value is one of the constant quantities in an ivory bundle.
