the World was uprooted in a storm and swept out of sight down the river, Sanders could reassure a trembling people.
“This great tree Is. It lives in my strange House of Ghosts, and none other shall see it. There it sits making good magic for the Isisi.”
Bones came to be custodian of the Ghost House by natural processes. Finding that certain credit attached to the position, he claimed it for his own, and when the lower river folk lost their ju-ju (maliciously conveyed on to the Zaire by a native workman and concealed in the engine furnace) Bones assumed responsibility.
“This fine ju-ju came to my Ghost House, and there he lives, and every morning I speak to him and he speaks to me.”
“Lord, we should like to see our beautiful ju-ju, for he was made wonderfully out of a magic tree by our fathers,” said one of the troubled elders.
“Him you may see,” said Bones significantly, “but if you look upon the other ghosts who live with him, your eyes will fall out.”
They decided to leave the ju-ju to his tender care.
The plan worked exceedingly well until Bosambo fell out with the Akasava.
Bosambo, Paramount Chief of the Ochori, best-eared of all chiefs, had an elementary but effective system of justice. For him no frontiers existed, no sovereignty was sacred, though he rigidly enforced the restrictions of frontier and the holiness of the Ochori territory upon others. There came into the forest land at the extreme southern edge of his land a party of Akasava huntsmen in search of game, and these with a lordly indifference to the inviolability of his territority, speared and shot without so much as “by your leave.”
They were in search of the small monkeys with white whiskers, which are considered a delicacy by the epicureans of the Akasava, and are found nowhere else than in the southern Ochori. They are killed with arrows, to the heads of which a yard of native rope is attached. When the monkey is hit, the barbed arrowhead falls off, and the rope and shaft becoming entangled in the small branches of the trees in which the little people live, they are easily caught and despatched.
Now the people of the Ochori do not eat monkeys. They capture them and train them into domestic pets, so that you cannot pass through an Ochori village without seeing little white-whiskered figures squatting contentedly on the roof of the huts, engaged mainly in an everlasting hunt for fleas.
Messengers brought news of the invasion, and Bosambo left hurriedly for the south, taking with him fifty spearmen. They came upon the Akasava hunting party sitting about a fire over which shrivelled monkey-meat was roasting.
What followed need not be described in these pure pages; Bosambo had no right to brand the poachers with red-hot spear blades, and certainly his treatment did not err on the side of delicacy.
Ten days later, the weary hunting party came to the Akasava city and carried their grievances.
“Lord king, this Bosambo beat us and put hot irons upon us, so that we must sleep on our faces and cannot sit because of the cruel pain. And when we spoke of our king, he made horrible faces.”
Here was a cause for war, but the crops were not in, so the king sent his eldest men to Sanders. There was a palaver, and Sandi gave judgment.
“If a man walks into the lair of a leopard, shall he come to me and say, ‘I am scratched’? For the leopards have their place, and the hunter has his. And if a man put his hand into a cooking-pot, shall he kill the woman at the fire because his hand is burnt? There is a place for the hand and a place for the boiling meat. Now, I give you this riddle. How can a man be burnt if he does not go to the fire? Let no man of the Akasava hunt in the forests of the Ochori. As to the lord chief Bosambo, I will make a palaver with him.”
“Lord,” said one of the injured hunters, “we are shamed before our wives, and we cannot sit down.”
“Stand,” said Sanders laconically; “and as to your wives,
“This great tree Is. It lives in my strange House of Ghosts, and none other shall see it. There it sits making good magic for the Isisi.”
Bones came to be custodian of the Ghost House by natural processes. Finding that certain credit attached to the position, he claimed it for his own, and when the lower river folk lost their ju-ju (maliciously conveyed on to the Zaire by a native workman and concealed in the engine furnace) Bones assumed responsibility.
“This fine ju-ju came to my Ghost House, and there he lives, and every morning I speak to him and he speaks to me.”
“Lord, we should like to see our beautiful ju-ju, for he was made wonderfully out of a magic tree by our fathers,” said one of the troubled elders.
“Him you may see,” said Bones significantly, “but if you look upon the other ghosts who live with him, your eyes will fall out.”
They decided to leave the ju-ju to his tender care.
The plan worked exceedingly well until Bosambo fell out with the Akasava.
Bosambo, Paramount Chief of the Ochori, best-eared of all chiefs, had an elementary but effective system of justice. For him no frontiers existed, no sovereignty was sacred, though he rigidly enforced the restrictions of frontier and the holiness of the Ochori territory upon others. There came into the forest land at the extreme southern edge of his land a party of Akasava huntsmen in search of game, and these with a lordly indifference to the inviolability of his territority, speared and shot without so much as “by your leave.”
They were in search of the small monkeys with white whiskers, which are considered a delicacy by the epicureans of the Akasava, and are found nowhere else than in the southern Ochori. They are killed with arrows, to the heads of which a yard of native rope is attached. When the monkey is hit, the barbed arrowhead falls off, and the rope and shaft becoming entangled in the small branches of the trees in which the little people live, they are easily caught and despatched.
Now the people of the Ochori do not eat monkeys. They capture them and train them into domestic pets, so that you cannot pass through an Ochori village without seeing little white-whiskered figures squatting contentedly on the roof of the huts, engaged mainly in an everlasting hunt for fleas.
Messengers brought news of the invasion, and Bosambo left hurriedly for the south, taking with him fifty spearmen. They came upon the Akasava hunting party sitting about a fire over which shrivelled monkey-meat was roasting.
What followed need not be described in these pure pages; Bosambo had no right to brand the poachers with red-hot spear blades, and certainly his treatment did not err on the side of delicacy.
Ten days later, the weary hunting party came to the Akasava city and carried their grievances.
“Lord king, this Bosambo beat us and put hot irons upon us, so that we must sleep on our faces and cannot sit because of the cruel pain. And when we spoke of our king, he made horrible faces.”
Here was a cause for war, but the crops were not in, so the king sent his eldest men to Sanders. There was a palaver, and Sandi gave judgment.
“If a man walks into the lair of a leopard, shall he come to me and say, ‘I am scratched’? For the leopards have their place, and the hunter has his. And if a man put his hand into a cooking-pot, shall he kill the woman at the fire because his hand is burnt? There is a place for the hand and a place for the boiling meat. Now, I give you this riddle. How can a man be burnt if he does not go to the fire? Let no man of the Akasava hunt in the forests of the Ochori. As to the lord chief Bosambo, I will make a palaver with him.”
“Lord,” said one of the injured hunters, “we are shamed before our wives, and we cannot sit down.”
“Stand,” said Sanders laconically; “and as to your wives,
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