[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

RECRUITING FOR NATIVES 67

was very comforting. However, in the course of the
next few years I became accustomed to this treat-
ment, though I never again met it in such crudeness.

We had slowly approached the forest and could
get a few glimpses of the women, who had kept
quite in the background and hid still more when we
came near. They had braided aprons arOund their
waists and rolled mats on their heads. Nearly all
of them carried babies on their hips, and they looked
fairly healthy, although the children were full of
sores. Evidently the men did not like our looking
at the ladies; they pushed us back and drove the
women away. We returned to the boats, and the
natives retired too, howling, shrieking and laughing.
Towards evening another crowd arrived, and the

performance was repeated in every detail. Happy
over the bartered goods, they began to dance, first

decorating themselves with tall branches stuck in the
back of their belts. They jumped from one foot to
the other, sometimes turning round, and singing in a
rough, deep monotone. We withdrew to the boats,
and they dispersed on the shore, lighted fires and
roasted the yams they had left.

Far away across the sea there was lightning, the
surf boomed more heavily than by day, the cutter
rolled more violently and restlessly and the whale-
boat scraped against her sides, While the wind roared
through the forest gullies and thunder threatened
behind the hills. We felt lonely in the thick dark-
neSS, with the tempest approaching steadily, afloat on
a tiny shell, alone against the fury of the elements.