"I can show you something that'll make up for the loss of a night's rest."

And the upshot of it was that within three minutes they were returning with four of the patrol to the scene of the night's adventure.

The Intelligence Officer turned round just as they were starting, and asked what had been done with the spade. It was with the sergeant of the guard. "Bring it along then," said he.

On the way he asked the patrol officer several questions. "You say you searched the ground all round where the man was standing?" "Yes."

"And you found nothing?" 'No, only the spade." "And how deep do you think the grave was?"

"I should say about a foot, or perhaps a foot and a half."

The Intelligence Officer took the spade himself and dug away at "Michael O'Flanigan's grave " like a Trojan. After ten minutes of this, the spade struck something hard which sounded with a metallic clang.

"Here's your evidence," said he. "Never fear; there's something in this box which will provide our friend the grave-digger with a safe passport to Rooks' Castle before many days are over. Send back two of the men for three more spades. We can work in shifts."

They lifted the first box

VOL. CCIX.-NO. MCCLXIII.

"What a splendid place to keep your munitions in," said the Intelligence Officer-" a graveyard. The Sinn Feiners aren't quite such fools as they're painted, are they ? "

In all, they discovered one hundred and fifty rifles of varying patterns and in very varying condition, several thousand rounds of ammunition, and a nice little supply of bombs.

And just as the dawn was breaking they went off to a well-earned sleep. He of the spade and the slouch hat spent a week as a guest at Rooks' Castle, and he then embarked on a journey across water.

A fortnight later there stood on the upper deck of a steamer, looking out over the taffrail, a solitary figure gazing at the waves glittering cold in the moonlight.

As the coast receded in the distance, and the twinkle of a distant lighthouse showed the English shore, his mind was filled almost with regret to be leaving a land of so many strange things. But not quite : no one is sorry to be going home again.

And then a crowd of reflections flooded his thoughts, as they will on such occasions, when movement and change of scene and variety of experience stir the brain.

Is there a law of treason? Should men co-operate towards a common aim? Should they

G

help rather than hinder each other ?

And as to our sense of the past which is best, that it should be a sense of grievances carefully cherished, or a memory of mistakes and pitfalls to be avoided in the future!

Is it best to stand in the way of the body politic, and when convicted, to seek escape by an unworthy appeal to garish sentiment! For ought any ruler worthy of the name to forbear to enforce plain justice in answer to a sentimental outcry?

Has any civilisation that ignored the necessity of order continued to flourish For this

is and still remains the basis of peace and concord, as it was in the day of him who wrote

"Si che come noi siam di soglia in soglia

Per questo regno, a tutto 'l regno piace,

Com' allo Re, ch' in suo voler ne 'nvoglia:

E la sua volontade è nostra pace: Ella è quel mare, al qual tutto si

muove

Ciò, ch' ella cria, o che natura face." -DANTE, 'Paradiso,' Canto iii. 1. 82.

WHEN Stanley made his memorable journey down the Congo in 1877, Central Equatorial Africa was in a very different condition from that which the traveller finds to-day. The great river then flowed through lands still darkened by the hideous cloud of the slave trade. Civilisation was unknown, and cannibalism was almost universal among the many warring tribes. Stanley thought it necessary to take with him a small army of negro warriors, and he had to fight almost every step of his way to the coastal regions.

Having lately crossed the Continent from the Belgian Congo to British East Africa, I am able to testify to the extraordinary change that has come over the Equatorial regions through which I passed. A fleet of steamers plies up and down the Congo river. Trading centres, missionary stations, and administrative posts are distributed all along its length. The natives, generally speaking, have been transformed from bloodthirsty cannibals into decent law-abiding members of society.

True, in the interior of the vast forests there are still black spots where human flesh is eaten at tribal feasts, and

The

where a white man runs the risk of being received with a cloud of poisoned arrows. But these places are receiving the attention of the Belgian military authorities. Government posts are being established in the less accessible districts, and in a very short time the last remnants of the bad old days will probably have disappeared. The epoch of the alleged "red rubber" atrocities has passed away. treatment of the natives by the Belgians I found to be excellent in the areas through which I passed, erring, if at all, on the side of leniency rather than of severity. Moreover, such are the transport facilities now available, that the greater part of the journey from west to east is rather in the nature of a pleasure trip than of the arduous and perilous undertaking of even a few years ago. The only really trying portion of the route followed was that we had to traverse on foot from Bambili-which is far away to the north-east of Stanleyville-to Kasenge on Lake Albert Nyanza, a distance of about 300 miles as the crow flies, but of nearer 400 miles by the route we took. The only district reported as dangerous owing to the un

settled state of the natives was one near Kilo, but, by slightly altering our route, we avoided all difficulty.

East

The object of the expedition in which I took part was mainly big-game hunting. There were four of us: Mr Sydney Fairbairn of the Grenadier Guards, Captain Geoffrey Catchpole, Major Bisshopp, and myself. All had served in the Great War. Captain Catchpole is well known for his hunting exploits in British East Africa. Major Bisshopp and myself had had big-game experience in Rhodesia, and I had also done some shooting both in what was formerly German Africa and to the south of the Rovuma. We travelled by Belgian steamer from Falmouth to Matadi, some few miles up the Congo, and thence by train to Kinshara, on Stanley Pool. Here we boarded the river steamer for Stanleyville, which is about 1000 miles up-stream. From Stanleyville we returned some 200 miles by a smaller boat to Bumba. A still smaller steamer took us up the Rubi river to Go. From Go we went by canoe to Jumba, thence by another steamer to Buta, and by motorcar to Bambili. Then came the long journey on foot through Poko, Rungu, Gombari (where two of our party left us to proceed by another route), Arebi, Kilo, and Runia to Kasenye, at the southwestern end of Lake Albert Nyanza. Captain Catchpole and I crossed that lake by

the steamer to Butiaba in Northern Uganda. We proceeded by motor-car to Masindi Port on Lake Kiogo, crossed by steamer to Namasagali, went by the short railway to Jinga on Lake Victoria Nyanza, took the steamer to Kisumu in British East Africa, and the Mombasa Railway to Nairobi.

Leaving Falmouth on the first of October 1919, we reached Matadi some three weeks later, Stanleyville in the third week of November, and, departing from Bumba at the beginning of December, completed our journey to Nairobi early in April 1920.

Matadi, the port at which we disembarked, is a curious little place built on a steep hill. The gradients are of such a character that no vehicles can be used in the streets, and everything has to be carried by natives. One's general impression of the town is summed up in the word oil." The whole place reeks of palmoil. Eighty per cent of the cooking is done with it; and the inhabitants, as they clamber up and down under the hot sun, look as if they had been bathing in it. The temperature was something extraordinary in the shade, and our butter came to table in the form of oil. Personally, I had such a sickening of oil that I don't think I shall ever want to taste it again even with my salad.

We had an absolute nightmare of a time with the Belgian customs officials. They