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Updated: September 1, 2025
I left some beads as payment for some meal which had been presented by the ferrymen; and, the canoe having been left on their own side of the river, Pitsane and his companions laughed uproariously at the disgust our enemies would feel, and their perplexity as to who had been our paddler across.
The ferrymen, with great joy in the telling, informed him that the season for tourists parties was just beginning and that we might expect, with them, to do a thriving and prosperous business during the next month or two.
In a few minutes we were afloat; and while sitting in the boat I had time to observe my ferrymen: one was a stupid countryman, who did not speak; the other was an old man with a Woollen night-cap under his hat, a brown snuff-colored coat, a nose begrimed with snuff, a small gray eye enveloped amidst wrinkles that spread towards his temples in the form of birds' claws, and gave to his countenance a sort of leering cunning that was extremely disagreeable.
The ferrymen, with the characteristic hospitality of the Hills, requested us to dismount and share the evening meal, but we declined, urging the lateness of the hour. Through the open door I could see the unfinished supper, the sweet corn-pone cut like a great cheese, the striped bacon, and the blue stone milk pitcher with its broken ears.
This piety was always a <I>madonnina</I>, the protectress of the passage a quaint figure of the Virgin with the red spark of a lamp at her feet. The lamps appear for the most part to have gone out, and the images doubtless have been sold for <I>bric-a- brac</I>. The ferrymen, for aught I know, are converted to Nihilism a faith consistent happily with a good stroke of business.
The ferrymen had found that two fundo of these were of short measure, and two fundo more must be paid, otherwise the contract for ferrying us across would be considered null and void. So two fundo more were added, but not without demur and much "talk," which in these lands is necessary. 4 fundo == 40 necklaces; 1 fundo being 10 necklaces.
The ferrymen casually asked one of my Batoka if they had rivers in his country, and he answered with truth, "No, we have none." Kawawa's people then felt sure we could not cross. I thought of swimming when they were gone; but after it was dark, by the unasked loan of one of the hidden canoes, we soon were snug in our bivouac on the southern bank of the Kasai.
Close to the bank there was the dark blur of a big barge, which the ferrymen called a "karbos." Far away on the further bank, lights, dying down and flickering up again, zigzagged like little snakes; they were burning last year's grass. And beyond the little snakes there was darkness again. There little icicles could be heard knocking against the barge It was damp and cold....
There was something about this ferry and the two ferrymen which was transmitted to others, which many of the travellers felt. It happened occasionally that a traveller, after having looked at the face of one of the ferrymen, started to tell the story of his life, told about pains, confessed evil things, asked for comfort and advice.
This being settled, the ferrymen demanded equally preposterous payment for carrying across the caravan. These demands, however, having at length been settled, the next business was to swim the donkeys across. One fine animal, Simba, was being towed with a rope round its neck, when, just as it reached the middle of the stream, it was seen to struggle fearfully.
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