ften  intersected  by rocky ridges, ranges of hills or
groups of eroded rocks. In such places  they came across baboons, repulsive,
dog-headed  creatures.  When the  men approached  them  these  monkeys would
gather on the rocks or under the trees and gaze fearlessly at the strangers,
making insolent grimaces  at  them.  Pandion  looked  with disgust at  those
naked, dog-like faces  with their  blue  distended cheeks,  framed in  stiff
thick hair, and at their waggling hind-quarters with the red, calloused bare
patches.  The  monkeys  were  dangerous. Once  Cavius  was  incensed  by the
behaviour  of three of  them who barred  his way,  and struck  one with  his
spear. A serious battle took  place at the foot of the crags. The travellers
were lucky  to get away  without suffering any losses  although  they had to
retreat with the greatest possible alacrity.
     On  the  twenty-fifth day  of  their journey  across  the imperceptibly
rising country a dark  line appeared on the  horizon. Kidogo gave a shout of
joy  as he pointed to it; that line  was  the beginning of the great forest,
the last obstacle  they had to overcome. Beyond the densely wooded mountains
lay the long-awaited sea, the reliable road home.
     By midday the party  reached a grove of palm-trees whose  strange shape
astonished Pandion. These were the first  palm-trees they  had  seen in  the
plains that resembled the date-palms of Aigyptos. Each of the tall, straight
trunks rose 'directly out of the middle of a star of shadow cast  by its own
crown.  The  dry  soil  between the black  stars of the  shadows looked like
white-hot metal. The disposition of the  shadows told Pandion that at midday
the  sun was  exactly  over  his head.  He  spoke to Cavius  about this. The
Etruscan  shrugged his  shoulders  in perplexity but Kidogo said that it was
really so.  The  farther they went  to the  south  the  higher the sun  rose
although nobody knew the reason  for it. The old people said that there is a
legend to  the effect that a  lot  farther to the south  the  sun gets lower
again.
     Pandion did not have much time to ponder over  this problem-his thirsty
companions were hurrying to get to water. During their midday bivouac Kidogo
told them that by  evening they would reach the trees and that their further
road  lay through forests -and  mountains that stretched  to the end of  the
earth.
     "Over there," the Negro pointed  to  the right, "and  over there,"  the
Negro's  hand swung round to  the  left,  "there  are  rivers, but we cannot
travel  along them. The right-hand river turns north to the  great fresh sea
on the  edge of  the northern  desert;  the left-hand  river turns south and
would take us far from the place  we want  to reach.  {Apart from that there
are strong  tribes living along  the rivers, who eat  human  flesh and would
kill us all.  We must go straight as an  arrow to the south-west between the
two  rivers. The dark forests are deserted and safe; |in the mountains there
are no people  since all fear the thunder and the dark  thickets. There  are
few animals here, but we, too, are few and can feed ourselves by hunting and
collecting fruits."
     (  The  right-hand  river-the  modern  Shari. The  left-hand river- the
Ubangi, the main tributary of the Congo).
     Pandion, Cavius  and the  Libyans  were troubled by indefinite fears as
they looked doubtfully at the dark forest that stretched before them.




        VII. THE MIGHT OF THE FOREST

     The most extraordinary trees towered above the thick undergrowth. Their
thin trunks, with convex transverse  ribs, were crowned with flat,  fan-like
platforms of short branches  bearing big leaves above which  projected long,
straight shoots, like green swords up to ten cubits in length. *( Lobelias)
     Four of these trees, two on either side, stood at  the forest edge like
sentinels, their swords raised threateningly. The travellers  passed between
them,  picking their way through  thorn-scrub.  A huge  wart-hog, with long,
curved fangs and an ugly lumpy head, appeared from under the  brush, grunted
angrily at the intruders and disappeared. . . .
     On the very first  day  in the forest Cavius lost the stick on which he
had cut forty-nine notches  to mark the number of days' journey;  after that
they lost  count of  time.  The huge forest, monotonous and unvarying, fixed
itself forever in Pandion's memory.
     The party marched in silence, and whenever they  tried to speak,  their
voices reverberated noisily under the impenetrable green vault overhead. The
wide expanses of the golden plain had never given them such a feeling of the
insignificance of man; here  they seemed completely lost in the depths of an
alien country. The huge stems of creeping plants, often as thick as  a man's
body, spiralled round the  smooth trunks of the trees, hung down from  above
in huge nets and separate  loops,  sometimes  forming  a solid curtain.  The
trees branched out  at a  tremendous height above the travellers' heads from
trunks  that faded  away  in the grey  twilight.  Stretches of  foul  water,
covered with green  slime, frequently  barred  their way; at times they came
across streams  of dark, noiselessly  flowing  water. In the rare glades the
sun blinded eyes long accustomed to the gloom of the forest, and the density
of the undergrowth forced the  travellers to  avoid such places. Tree-ferns,
four times  the height of a man, such as they had  never seen before, spread
their pale-green, feathery leaves like huge wings.
     (*  The Cyathea and Todea (grape  fern)  reach a height of more than 30
ft.)
     The clean-cut greyish leaves of mimosa formed a delicate pattern in the
sunbeams. Myriads  of  flowers-blood-red, orange,  violet,  white-stood  out
brilliantly against the background  of  light green leaves of every possible
kind: big and broad, long and narrow, regular-shaped, indented and  serrate.
The wild tangle of  vegetation was made even  more chaotic by the spirals of
creeping lianas, while everywhere long  thorns stuck out to tear  ruthlessly
the  flesh of the  traveller.  These  glades  were filled  with the constant
jabber and chatter of birds so noisy that it seemed  as though all the  life
of the forest was concentrated at these points.
     The travellers checked up the direction of their journey by the sun and
again  plunged into the twilight of  the forest,  finding  their  way  along
hollows, washed  out  by the rain, and along river-beds  and getting a fresh
orientation from  the sun's rays that occasionally  slanted down through the
dense foliage. The guides tried to steer clear of the glades for yet another
reason: the  trees  near them  gave  shelter to terribly  dangerous insects,
deadly black wasps  and huge ants. Big lichens,  leathery grey  excrescences
and  other growths covered the tree-trunks  while the high ridges  of  their
roots were covered in a green coat  of moss. These flat roots, often as much
as  five  or  six cubits high, branched out  from  the ribs of  the gigantic
tree-trunks like buttresses. The whole party of  nineteen  men  could easily
have bivouacked in the deep pits between roots that crossed over each other,
making  all movement in  the forest difficult; the travellers either  had to
climb over them or go round them, making their way through narrow corridors.
Their  feet sank into the thick carpet of  half-rotten branches, leaves  and
dried shoots that covered the ground. Bunches of whitish toadstools gave off
heavy  odour,  like that  of  a corpse. Their weary  legs knew  rest only in
places  where the trees were not so high and the roots did not  bar the  way
and  the ground was  covered  with soft  moss. These  places, however,  were
densely overgrown  with thorn-bushes that had to be avoided or a path had to
be  cut  through them, which again caused loss of time and effort. A kind of
spotted  slug  fell  from  the  branches  on to the bare  shoulders  of  the
travellers and burned their skin with its poisonous slime. On rare occasions
the shadow of some animal could be discerned in the gloom of the forest; but
it disappeared so quickly and silently that the travellers were often unable
to say  what kind of  animal it  was.  At  night the  same profound  silence
reigned to be broken only by the plaintive  howl  of some unknown animal and
by the raucous cries of some unknown bird.
     The travellers crossed a large  number of low ridges of hills but never
once reached open country devoid of trees. The forest between the ridges was
thicker than ever; the humid,  heavy  air of the  valleys, rank with rotting
vegetation, made it difficult for the men to breathe.
     When the party  reached a valley  in the bed of which a rapid stream of
cold water flowed between big boulders, they sat down to rest.
     After that the long uphill climb began again.
     For two days they continued their uphill march, the forest all the time
growing denser and darker. There were no longer any glades where food was to
be found and  wind-felled trees  barred their  way.  In order  to  avoid the
thorny  curtain  of thin resilient  stems  that hung down from above and the
impenetrable  undergrowth  of  shrubs  and small trees,  they were forced to
crawl on all fours along the rain gullies covering the hillsides.
     The hard earth crumbled under their hands and feet, but they crawled on
through this labyrinth taking their direction only from the dry gullies.
     Gradually the air grew colder as though the  party had  penetrated into
deep and damp catacombs.
     It  was pitch dark by the time  they reached the  top of  the slope and
were apparently on the edge  of a  plateau.  There were  no  more rain-water
gullies, and  the  travellers  halted  for the night  in order  not  to lose
direction. Not a star was  to  be  seen through the dense vault  of  leaves.
Somewhere far above them a wind was raging. Pandion lay sleepless for a long
time, listening to the roar of the forest that reminded him  of the noise of
a nearby sea. The rumble,  rustle and  clatter of the branches in the strong
gusts of wind merged into one mighty sound resembling the regular beating of
the surf on the shore.
     Dawn  came very  late, the sun's  rays  struggling to  pierce the thick
mist. At long last the  invisible  sun overcame the twilight of the  forest,
and before the men's eyes a gloomy, oppressive scene opened up.
     The black and  white  trunks  of enormous trees, a  hundred  and  fifty
cubits high,  disappeared in a  thick milky  mist that completely hid  their
mossy  branches. Moss and  lichens, sodden  with  water, hung  down from the
trees in long  dark braids and grey beards, at times waving to  and fro at a
terrific height  above the ground. Water that exuded from the spongy network
of twisted  roots,  grass  and  moss slopped  underfoot. Dense  thickets  of
broad-leafed   bushes  hindered  all  progress.  Big   pale  flowers,   like
honeycombed balls, swayed gently on their long stems in the mist. ,
     Black and white columns, four cubits in diameter, stood like an army in
serried ranks;  the grey mist rolled  round  them and  thin streams of water
trickled down their bark. Some of the trunks were coated with a thick growth
of sodden moss.
     Nothing could be seen at a distance of more than thirty or forty cubits
in that awful forest;  to make any progress the travellers had to cut a path
for themselves at the foot of those forest giants.
     The piled-up  barriers  of  fallen giants  disheartened  even  the most
hardened travellers. The worst thing of all was the impossibility of judging
direction since there was no means of checking up.
     The  Negroes shivered in the cold  mist, frightened by the unbelievable
might of  the forest; the  Libyans were completely discouraged. They all had
the  feeling that  they had entered the  domain of the forest gods,  a place
forbidden to man, from which there was no way out.
     Cavius made a sign to Pandion; they armed  themselves with heavy knives
and began frantically to carve a way through the wet branches. Gradually the
others began  to take heart and they worked in shifts, relieving each other;
climbing over gigantic barricades of fallen trees; losing their way in their
efforts to find a  path  through the enormous roots  and again plunging into
green thickets.  The hours passed; overhead there  was the same white gloom;
the water continued to drip slowly and  heavily from the  trees; the air did
not grow any warmer and it was  only by the greyish-red hue of the mist that
they realized that evening was drawing nigh. . . .


     "There's no way out in any direction!" With these words Kidogo sat down
on a root, pressing his head between  his hands in despair. Two other guides
had returned earlier with similar information.
     For a distance of  about  a thousand  cubits a  narrow glade  stretched
across  the path  they had cut.  Behind them stood the  gloomy giant  forest
through which they had been hacking  their way by superhuman efforts for the
past  three days. Before  them  stood an impenetrable  growth of bamboo. The
polished, jointed stems rose to a height of twenty cubits, gracefully bowing
their  thin  feathery heads. The  bamboo grew so  thick  that there  was  no
possibility of penetrating that  dense  throng of jointed stalks as straight
as  spear-shafts, that stood like a  solid  wall before  the travellers. The
polished  surface  of the bamboo  was so hard  that  the  travellers' bronze
knives were blunted  by the  first strokes. Axes  or heavy swords  would  be
needed to attack  that  wall. It  seemed  that  there  was no  way round the
bamboo;  the glade  was bounded  by  dense forest thickets and  the stand of
bamboo  stretched in both  directions far into the  misty  distance  of  the
plateau.
     The customary energy of the travellers had been sapped by  the cold, by
insufficient food and the struggle against the awful forest; the latter part
of their journey had  been  too  much for them.  Nevertheless they could not
contemplate the possibility of having to turn back.
     To get through those awful forests it was not sufficient to keep  their
former general direction of south-west; it was not enough  to hack and carve
their way through the dense vegetation; they also had to know where the path
could be cut. The right way could  only be indicated by those who  lived  in
the forest. So far they  had not met any people in the jungles and a  search
for them might well end up on the gridirons of a cannibal barbecue.
     We haven't made it! was the thought that  was reflected in the faces of
all nineteen men, in their  knitted brows, in their grimaces of despair  and
in the mask of mute submission.
     When Kidogo recovered  from  his first attack of despair, he threw back
his head to look up at the giant branches that stretched over the glade at a
height of  a  hundred cubits.  Pandion  went  quickly  over  to  his friend,
guessing at what was in his mind.
     "Do you  think  it's  possible to  climb  them?" he asked,  looking  at
tree-trunks  that  were  perfectly smooth to a tremendous  height  above the
ground.
     "We  must,  even  if  it  takes  us  a  whole  day,"  answered  Kidogo,
despondently. "We must go either forward or back,  but there must be no more
guesswork, there's nothing left to eat."
     "That  one," said Pandion,  pointing to a white-barked giant  that rose
high above the glade, its crooked branches spreading like a star against the
background of the sky. "You can see a long way from that tree."
     Kidogo shook his head.
     "No, the trees with white or with black bark* are no good. ( Any of the
many African hardwood trees such as ebony, ironwood, Macaranga or polyscias,
all of which have either black or white bark.)
     The wood  is  as hard as iron, you can't  drive a knife into  them  let
alone a wooden peg. If we can find a tree with red bark and big leaves we'll
climb it."
     The  men spread along  the glade  in search  of a  suitable tree.  Soon
somebody  shouted that he had  found one.  The tree was lower than  the iron
giants, but  it stood close  against the  bamboo wall, rising  a  goad fifty
cubits above it. The travellers with the greatest difficulty cut two  bamboo
stalks, split them into pegs a cubit long  and made a  point  at one  end of
each of  them. Kidogo and Mpafu took heavy clubs  and began driving the pegs
into the soft wood of the tree-trunk, climbing  higher and higher until they
reached a liana twining round the tree in a spiral. Kidogo and his companion
belted themselves around with thin lianas, pressed their feet firmly against
the tree-trunk and, leaning far  back  from  the tree, began  climbing  to a
prodigious  height. Soon their bodies became tiny dark figures  against  the
background of heavy clouds that covered the sky. Pandion grew jealous of his
companions;  they  were  high up  above him, they  could see the wide world,
while he remained below in the shadow like a reddish-blue  worm such as they
met in the rain-water gullies in the forest.
     He made a  sudden decision and seized hold of  the bamboo pegs hammered
into  the  tree.  He  merely waved  his hand at  Cavius'  shout  of warning,
scrambled quickly up the tree and reached  the twining liana; he out off the
end of a thinner liana that 'hung over his head, belted it round himself and
followed Kidogo's example.  He soon found  that this  method of climbing was
far from easy.
     The liana  cut into his back and  the moment he relaxed the  tension in
his legs, his feet slipped and he banged his knees against the  coarse bark.
With  the greatest difficulty Pandion climbed halfway up the  tree. The tops
of the bamboos  swayed  beneath him in an  irregular yellow  sea, but it was
still a long way  to  climb to the first huge branches of the tree. He heard
Kidogo call from above and a strong liana with a noose at the end fell on to
his shoulder. Pandion passed the noose under his arms and those above pulled
gently on the liana, rendering him the greatest possible help. With his legs
all  lacerated,  tired but  joyful,  Pandion soon reached  the bigger  lower
branches. Here  Kidogo and his companion  had seated themselves  comfortably
between two big boughs.
     Pandion, from a height of eighty cubits, looked out towards the distant
horizon  for the  first  time in  many days. Bamboo thickets formed  -a belt
encircling  the  forest on the high plateau;  it  stretched to  the left and
right as far as the  eye  could see,  although in width it was no  more than
four or  five thousand  cubits. Behind the bamboo rose a low ridge  of black
rocks stretching  due west in a  chain  of sloping crags some distance  from
each other. Beyond them, again, the ground began  to fall gently. An endless
chain of  densely wooded  hills looked like solid  green clouds separated by
the  narrow  slits of ravines  filled  with  curling, dark  mists.  In these
ravines  lay  endless  days  of  hungry,  arduous  marching  through  gloomy
twilight, for  that was the  direction  in which the  party  had to  travel.
Nowhere could they see any  gap in the  solid green  wall over which floated
huge  ragged clouds  of white  mist, no glade  and no  wide  valley.  It was
doubtful whether the travellers had sufficient strength left  to fight their
way  forward even  to that visible  distance.  Farther, beyond the  twilight
gloom of the horizon, they might be faced with the same all over again, and,
if so, it spelt certain death Kidogo turned  away from the countryside  that
rolled away beneath him, catching Pandion's glance as he did so. The Hellene
saw  alarm and great weariness in the  dilated eyes of his  friend; Kidogo's
inexhaustible vitality had gone, his face was wrinkled in a bitter grimace.
     "We  must look  back,"  said Kidogo  in  a  dismal voice;  he  suddenly
straightened  up and walked  along a branch that stretched horizontally high
above the bamboo.
     With difficulty Pandion restrained a  cry of fear, but the Negro walked
on swaying slightly, as though it were nothing at all,  until he reached the
end  of the branch, making the leaves tremble and  the  bough bend downwards
under his weight. Pandion sat dead still with fright as-Kidogo sat down with
his legs  astride  the  branch, held  himself  firmly  by  grasping  thinner
branches and began to study  the country beyond the right-hand corner of the
glade. Pandion did not dare follow 'his friend. Holding  their breath he and
Mpafu awaited Kidogo's report. The  other sixteen men  of the party,  almost
invisible to those on the tree, were eagerly following all their movements.
     For a  long time Kidogo  sat  swaying  on the  springy branch and then,
without a word, returned to the tree-trunk.
     "It's a bad  thing not to know the way," he said sorrowfully. "We could
have got here much more easily. Over there," the Negro waved his hand to the
north-west, "the grassy plain isn't far from us. We should have gone farther
to the right instead  of  entering  the forest. . . . We must go back to the
grasslands. Perhaps  there  are  people there; there are usually more people
near the forest edge  than there  are in  the forest itself or  out  in  the
plains."
     The descent from the tree proved much more difficult and dangerous than
the ascent. If it had not been for the help of his companions, Pandion would
never have been able to  descend so  quickly, or, far more  likely, he would
have fallen and been killed. He  had no sooner  put his feet on solid ground
than his knees  gave way under  him  and he lay  spread-eagled on the ground
amidst  the shouts and laughter  of  his companions. Kidogo told  the others
what  he had seen from the treetop and proposed setting off at  right angles
to the path they  had mapped  out. To Pandion's great surprise not  a single
word of  protest  was  raised,  although  everybody realized that  they  had
suffered defeat in their battle with the forest and that they would probably
be detained  a long time. Even  the stubborn Etruscan,  Cavius, was  silent,
apparently because he  realized how  the  men had suffered  in that hard but
futile struggle.
     Pandion remembered that  at the beginning  of their journey Kidogo  had
said  that the way round the  forest  was  a long and  dangerous one. Strong
savage tribes, for whom the nineteen travellers did not constitute a serious
force, lived along the rivers and on the verge of the forest. . . .
     Grassland, with low trees growing  at  regular intervals like a planted
orchard, sloped down to a fast  river,  with black rocks huddled together on
its far  bank. The river  had piled up a long  barrier of drift-wood against
the rocks-tree-trunks, branches and reeds, dried and whitened in the sun.
     The party of former slaves skirted a  palm grove  that had been smashed
by elephants and made camp under  a  low tree.  The aroma of the  resin that
seeped out of  its trunk and monotonous rustling  of the rags of silky bark,
brought drowsiness to the weary travellers.
     Kidogo  suddenly  rose  to  his  knees;  his  companions,   too,   were
immediately on  the  alert. A  huge  elephant was approaching the river. Its
appearance might  bode  no good  for them. They watched the loose,  sweeping
gait of the  animal that seemed  to be waddling unhurriedly along inside its
own thick  skin. The elephant  drew nearer, carelessly waving its trunk, and
there was something in its  behaviour  that differed  greatly from the usual
caution  of those sensitive beasts. Suddenly  human voices rang out, but the
elephant did not even  raise  its huge  ears that  lay back on its head. The
bewildered travellers looked at each other and stood up only to fall down to
the ground immediately, as  though they had been ordered to do so; alongside
the elephant they noticed a number of human figures. Only then did Pandion's
companions notice  a man lying on the elephant's broad neck, his head rested
on his crossed arms on top of the animal's head. The  elephant went straight
to the  river  and  entered the  water,  stirring up the  mud with  its huge
tree-trunks of legs.  It  suddenly spread out its  ears which made  its head
seem three times the normal size. Its tiny brown eyes stared into the depths
of the river. The  man lying on the elephant's  back  sat up and slapped the
animal sharply on its sloping  skull. A loud shout "Heya!" resounded up  and
down the river.  The elephant waved its trunk, seized with it a big log from
amongst the drift-wood, lifted it high over its head and  hurled it into the
water. The  heavy log  made a  big splash and disappeared under the water to
reappear  farther downstream a  few moments later. The elephant  threw a few
more logs  into the water and then, stepping  cautiously, walked  out to the
middle  of the river,  turned  round  with its  head against the current and
stood still.
     The people  who had  come  with  the elephant-there were eight of them,
brown-skinned youths  and  girls-  with loud shouts and  roars  of  laughter
plunged  into  the cold river.  They played in the water ducking each other,
and their laughter and  loud slaps delivered on wet bodies resounded clearly
on all sides.
     The  man  on  the  elephant  shouted  merrily  but  watched  the  river
unceasingly, from time to time making the elephant throw heavy logs into the
water.
     The travellers watched what was happening in the greatest astonishment.
The  friendship  between  people  and  the enormous  elephant  was something
unbelievable, an unheard of miracle; still, at  a distance of no  more  than
three  hundred cubits from them, stood the huge, grey monster, submitting to
the will  of man. How could it have happened that an animal without equal in
size  and strength, the undisputed ruler  of  field  and  forest, had become
subservient to weak and fragile man, an insignificant creature compared with
the mass of the elephant, six cubits high at  the  shoulders? Who were these
people who had tamed the lord of the African plains?
     Cavius' eyes were gleaming as he nudged Kidogo.  The latter turned from
watching the merry play of the young people and whispered in Cavius' ear:
     "I heard  about this when  I was a boy. I was told that somewhere along
the  line where  the forest  meets the  plain there are  people known as the
Elephant People. Now  I see for myself that the story  was a  true one. That
elephant  is standing there to protect the bathers from crocodiles. . .  . I
have also heard that  these  people  are related  to  my  tribe and  speak a
language similar to ours...
     "Do you want to go  to  them?"  asked Cavius thoughtfully,  never for a
moment taking his eyes off the man on the elephant.
     "I'd like to, but I don't know..." stammered Kidogo. "If their tongue's
mine, they'll  understand us  and  we'll  have a chance to find the road  we
need.  If  they speak another tongue, things will go badly  with  us-they'll
destroy us like mice!"
     "Do they eat human flesh?" asked Cavius after a pause.
     "I  have heard that  they don't.  They're a rich and  powerful people,"
answered the Negro, chewing a blade of grass to hide his indecision.
     "I'd try  to find out what language they speak while  they are here, to
avoid  going  to their village," said Cavius. "These people are only unarmed
youngsters and if the man on the elephant  attacks  us, we  can hide in  the
grass and bushes.  In  their village we'd all be killed if we didn't come to
an agreement with the Elephant People. . . ."
     Kidogo liked Cavius' advice.  He stood up,  displaying his full height,
and  walked slowly towards  the river. A shout from the man on  the elephant
put a  sudden stop to  the fun in the water; the bathers stood still,  up to
their waists in water, looking at the opposite bank.
     The  elephant turned menacingly  in the direction  of  the  approaching
Kidogo; his trunk  made a  rustling  noise as it  waved over the long, white
tusks, and its ears, like  huge, pendant wings, spread out again. The man on
the  elephant's back looked  fixedly at the newcomer;  in his right hand  he
held  a  broad knife  with a hook at  the end  that trembled slightly  as he
raised it, ready to use it.
     Without a word Kidogo walked almost to the edge  of the water, laid his
spear on the  ground, placed  his foot  on it, and spread out his weaponless
arms.
     "Greetings, friend," he said slowly, carefully  pronouncing every word.
"I am here with my companions. We are lonely fugitives  on our way  home. We
want to ask for help from your tribe..."
     The man  on the  elephant remained silent.  The travellers hiding under
the  tree waited with bated breath to  see whether the  man would understand
Kidogo's speech  or not.  An important turning  point in  the  fate  of  the
fugitives depended on what was to follow.
     The man on the  elephant slowly lowered his knife. The elephant shifted
its  weight from  one foot to another in the  swirling water and lowered its
trunk, allowing  it to  hang between its tusks. Suddenly the man spoke and a
sigh  of  relief  burst from  Pandion's breast, while a  shudder of  joy ran
through Kidogo who was  standing with his body tensely  strained. The speech
of the  elephant driver contained  strong stresses  and sibilant sounds that
were  not to  be  heard  in Kidogo's melodious language,  but  even  Pandion
recognized some familiar words.
     "Where are you from, stranger?"  came the question that seemed arrogant
from the height of the elephant's back. "And where are your companions?"
     Kidogo explained  that  they  had been  captives  in  Tha-Quem and were
making their way back home, to the sea coast. The  Negro beckoned the others
and the whole  party of nineteen, downcast and emaciated, came  down to  the
river-bank.
     "Tha-Quem?" repeated the man on the elephant, pronouncing the syllables
with difficulty. "What's that? Where is that country?"
     Kidogo told of the powerful country that stretched along a mighty river
in the north-east, and the elephant driver nodded his head understandingly.
     "I've heard of  it,  but  it's a terribly long way away. How  could you
have come so far?" There was a note of mistrust in the man's words.
     "That is a long story," answered Kidogo wearily.  "Look  at these men."
The  Negro pointed to Cavius,  Pandion and the group of  Libyans. "Have  you
ever seen anybody like them near here?"
     With a  look of interest the man on the elephant examined faces such as
he had  never before  seen. The distrust gradually faded from his  face;  he
slapped the elephant's head with his hand.
     "I am too young to decide anything without the elders. Come over to our
bank of  the river while the elephant is still in the  water and wait there.
What shall I tell the chiefs about you?"
     "Tell them that weary travellers ask permission to rest in your village
and  find out  the way to  the sea. We need  nothing more,"  answered Kidogo
laconically.
     "Never  have  we  heard  such things  or  seen  such people," mused the
elephant driver. Turning  to his own people, he shouted: "You go ahead, I'll
follow!"
     The  young people,  who had been  studying  the  newcomers  in silence,
hurried obediently to the bank, looking back and talking amongst themselves.
The driver turned his elephant so that it stood sideways across the  stream.
The travellers crossed the river,  breast high in the water. Then the driver
made his animal set  out  at a smart  pace and, following the  bathers, soon
disappeared  amongst the scanty  trees. The former slaves sat  down  on  big
stones  to  await their fate with  some trepidation. The  Libyans were  more
worried  than the  others, although Kidogo  assured them  that the  Elephant
People would not do them any harm.
     Shortly after  this  four elephants appeared, coming across the fields,
with  wide platforms of plaited branches on their backs.  Six warriors armed
with bows and exceptionally broad spears sat on each of the platforms. Under
this escort the former slaves reached  the village which proved  to be quite
close to the  meeting place, on a bend of the same river, some four thousand
cubits to the south-west.
     There were about  three  hundred huts dotted amongst green trees  on  a
hilly site.
     To the left of the village spread an open  forest, and some distance to
the right of  it stood a huge palisade  of gigantic logs  with pointed tops,
solidly  buttressed on the  outside  with other logs. Around this  structure
there was a deep moat fenced with a second palisade of pointed logs. Pandion
expressed surprise at the  size of  the  structure, but  Kidogo made a guess
that this was the pen for the elephants.
     Just as they had done many  days ago in the  east, the travellers stood
before the chiefs and elders  of a big  village; again  and again  they told
their marvellous tale of insurgent  slaves to which the great feat of a long
journey  through an  unknown land  was  now added. The chiefs questioned the
travellers closely, examined their weapons and the brand of Pharaoh on their
backs and made  Cavius and Pandion  tell them about their  countries  to the
north of the distant sea.
     Pandion was astonished at the extensive knowledge of these people; they
had not only heard of the Land of Nub,  where the travellers had  come from,
but they also knew many other places in Africa in the north, south, east and
west.
     Kidogo was delighted. The local inhabitants would show him  the way  to
his home and the wanderers would soon reach their goal by following the true
road.
     A  short meeting  of  the  Council  of Elders decided  the fate of  the
newcomers: they were to  be permitted to rest for a  few days in the village
and would be given food and  shelter  in  accordance with the sacred laws of
hospitality.
     The former slaves were  given a big hut on the outskirts of the village
where they could  enjoy a good rest. They were still more  encouraged by the
fact that the Elephant People would show them the right  way and  that their
wanderings were coming to an end.
     Pandion, Kidogo and Cavius wandered  about  the village, observing  the
life  of  the people who  had won their admiration by  their  power over the
gigantic animals. Pandion was astounded by the long fences of elephant tusks
where cattle were impounded. ( Amongst the Shilluks, on the upper reaches of
the Nile,  fences of elephant tusks were still to be met  with in the middle
of the 19th century.)
     It seemed to Pandion that this was a display of deliberate contempt for
the  terrible monsters. What  number of tusks  must these people possess  if
they  could waste the valuable ivory on such things? When Pandion asked this
question of one of the villagers, the latter very importantly suggested that
he ask the chiefs for permission to see the big storehouse in the centre  of
the village.
     "So many tusks  are stacked there," said  the man, pointing to  an open
space between two huts, a hundred and fifty cubits in length,  and he raised
a stick above his head to indicate the height of the stack of tusks.
     "How do  you  make  the  elephants obey you?"  asked Pandion, unable to
repress his curiosity.
     The man frowned and looked at him with suspicion.
     "That's  kept  secret  from strangers," he  answered  slowly.  "Ask the
chiefs about  it, if  you want  to know. Those  who wear round their necks a
gold chain with a red stone in it are the elephant trainers."
     Pandion remembered  then that they had been  forbidden to approach  the
compound bounded by the moat, and said no more, annoyed with himself for the
mistake he had  made. At that moment Kidogo  called  him; the Negro was in a
long shed where several men were working. Pandion saw that it was a potter's
shop where potters were busy making big earthenware pots for grain and beer.
     Kidogo could  not retain  himself. . . . He took a  big lump of  moist,
well-kneaded  clay,  squatted   on  his  heels,  lifted  his  eyes  to   the
reed-thatched roof and then began modelling. His big strong hands longed  to
be back  at their favourite work and his movements were full  of confidence.
Pandion watched his friend at work;  the potters laughed  amongst themselves
but did  not  cease  their  work.  The Negro's  competent hands slowly  cut,
squeezed and smoothed the soft clay until the formless mass began to take on
the  shape  of  the wide, sloping back with folds of skin hanging like sacks
from the shoulders that are typical of the elephant. The potters soon ceased
their chatter, left their pots and gathered around Kidogo, but the Negro was
so engrossed in his work that he did not even notice them.
     The thick legs stood firmly on  the ground, the elephant had raised its
head with  its trunk extended in front of it. Kidogo  found some twigs which
he stuck fanwise into the  clay and on this framework moulded the elephant's
ears, stretched like sails on either side. Exclamations of  admiration burst
from  the lips of the  watchers.  One  of  the potters, unobserved, left the
shed.
     Kidogo was working on  the  animal's hind-legs  and did not notice that
the throng of watchers had been joined by one of the chiefs, an old man with
a  long  thin neck,  a fleshy, hooked  nose and  a tiny grey  beard. On  the
chief's  breast  Pandion saw the  gold  chain  of one of the chief  elephant
trainers.
     In  silence the  old man watched  Kidogo finish his work. Kidogo  stood
back and rubbed the clay off his hands, smiling and critically examining the
model of an elephant a cubit high. The  potters  treated  him  to  cries  of
admiration. The  old chief raised  his  thick  brows and  the noise  stopped
immediately. He touched the wet clay like one who knew the business and then
made a sign to Kidogo to come to him.
     "I see you must be a great craftsman," said the chief, giving his words
great significance, "if you can do so easily something  that not  one of our
men  can  do. Tell me, can  you make a statue of a  man and not  only  of an
elephant?" And the chief tapped himself on the breast.
     Kidogo shook his head. The chief's face grew dark.
     "But  there's a  craftsman amongst us who is better than I, a craftsman
from a distant  northern country," said  Kidogo. "He can make your  statue."
The Negro pointed at Pandion who was standing nearby.
     The old man repeated his question to Pandion, who, seeing the imploring
eyes of his friend, agreed.
     "But I must tell you, chief," said Pandion, "that in my country we make
statues from  soft stone or  carve them from wood. I  have neither tools nor
stone here. I can only  make your statue from  this clay and up to here." He
passed his hand across his chest. "The clay will soon dry up and crack; your
picture will last only a few days. . . ."
     The chief smiled.
     "I want to see what the stranger craftsman can do,"  he said.  "And let
our potters watch him."
     "All right, I'll try," answered  Pandion.  "But you must sit  before me
while I work."
     "What for?" asked the  astonished chief. "Can't you model the clay like
he did?" And the old man pointed to Kidogo.
     Pandion was put out by this and tried to find words to answer him.
     "I  just made an elephant," put in Kidogo.  "But you, who are a trainer
of elephants, know that one elephant does not  resemble another. Only a  man
who does not know them thinks that all elephants are alike."
     "You speak the truth," the chief agreed. "I see immediately the soul of
any elephant and I can forecast his behaviour."
     "That's just it," Kidogo took him up. "If I want to  make a  particular
elephant, I must see  him before my eyes.  My  friend's  the same;  he's not
going to  make just  a man, he's going to make you, and  he must look at you
while he's working."
     "I understand," said  the old man.  "Let your friend come to me  during
the afternoon siesta and I'll sit before him."
     The chief went away and the potters placed the clay elephant on a bench
where ever-increasing numbers of villagers came to admire it.
     "Well, Pandion," said Kidogo to his friend, "our fate is in your hands.
If the chief is pleased with your statue, the Elephant People will  help us.
. . ."
     The young Hellene nodded his head and the two friends returned to their
house, with a crowd of children close on their heels.
     "Can you talk to  me?" asked the chief, taking his place on a high  and
uncomfortable  seat,  while Pandion was  hurriedly  arranging the  clay  the
potters had brought on a block of wood. "Will it interrupt your work?"
     "I can, but I don't know your language very well," answered Pandion. "I
shall not understand everything you say and must ans