It would be interesting to know what they thought of
the white man. At each station the open car disgorged its occupants
to fill with water the beer bottle each carried, and to buy from the
natives kwango, the black man's bread, a flaky, sticky flour that
tastes like boiled chestnuts; and pineapples at a franc for ten. And
such pineapples! Not hard and rubber-like, as we know them at home,
but delicious, juicy, melting in the mouth like hothouse grapes,
and, also, after each mouthful, making a complete bath necessary.
One of the French officers had a lump of ice which he broke into
pieces and divided with the others. They saluted magnificently many
times, and as each drowned the morsel in his tin cup of beer, one of
them cried with perfect simplicity: "C'est Paris!" This reminded me
that the ship's steward had placed much ice in my chop basket, and I
carried some of it to another car in which were five of the White
Sisters. For nineteen days I had been with them on the steamer, but
they had spoken to no one, and I was doubtful how they would accept
my offering. But the Mother Superior gave permission, and they took
the ice through the car window, their white hoods bristling with the
excitement of the adventure. They were on their way to a post still
two months' journey up the river, nearly to Lake Tanganyika, and for
three years or, possibly, until they died, that was the last ice
they would see.
At Bongolo station the division superintendent came in the car and
everybody offered him refreshment, and in return he told us, in the
hope of interesting us, of a washout, and then casually mentioned
that an hour before an elephant had blocked the track.
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