John  Ragenji  told  me  he  had  thought  of  taming  a  young  elephant  to  send  to
England,  and  said  it  could  easily  be  done.  There  is  no  difficulty  whatever
in  taming  an  elephant;  the  difficulty  is  to  feed  him.
1 31


THE  KING    OF  THE  REMBO

My  first  object  in  visiting  the  Gorilla  Country  had  been
to  investigate  the  statements  of  M.  du  Chaillu.     But  I
found  that  in  the  Gaboon  itself  little  was  known  about
him,  and  that  the  chief  scene  of  his  supposed  exploits
was  the  region  of  the  Fernand  Vaz,  or  Camma  Country,
especially  a  town  called  Ngumbi.     There  were  no  white
men  in  the  Fernand  Vaz,  Captain  Lawlin,  an  American,
who  had  colonised  it,  having  died  six  months  before.     I
wished,  therefore,  to  go  on  to  that  river.     But  there  was
no  regular  communication  between  it  and  the  Gaboon.
To  go  by  land  was  almost  impossible,  on   account   of
intervening  swamps,  and  at  that  time  of  the  year  the
wind  blows  steadily  from  the  south-west,  and  one  can-
not sail  in  a  canoe  against  the  wind.
But  it  happened  that  a  Captain  Johnson  had  been
sent  out  to  take  charge  of  the  factory  vacated  by  the
death  of  Captain  Lawlin.  He  was  in  Gaboon,  and
about  to  sail  to  Camma  in  a  fine  surf-boat,  sloop-
rigged.  He  was  glad  of  a  companion,  I  of  a  passage,
and  so  we  agreed  to  go  together.  On  May  28  we  set
sail,  and  stole  slowly  from  the  river  into  the  broad  and
swelling  sea.
