I remember on one occasion, when I was staying with Stanley at Leopold viUe< be invited mc to accompany him on a cruise round Stanley Pool. He had arranged to meet an important chief named Ngantshu on an island in that lake-like expansion of the Congo. Ngantshu had hitherto been reported as deci.ledly hostile to Stanley a advance up river, but a meeting was ar ranged, and Ngantshu had corpe dawn the river some hundred and fifty miles to see " Bala Matadl" and confer with him. He arrived escorted by a number of canoes and many followers, and a show of state. Above all, he brought with him his an cestral fetish, a horrid-looking object made of a monkey's skull and red clay, studded with cowries and hung with little beils. This thing, tohis mind and " bringing-up," embodied the spirits of his departed an cestors, and must be treated with great consideration and respect. Li bations of palm wine must be poured over its head when it was thirsty, and ehewed-np food spat into its mouth when it was an hungered. The fetish waa introduced deprecatingly to "Bula Matadl." Instead of doing as go many heedless explorers would have done —rudeJy laughing and saying through the interpreter, What dam nonsense! Ask him why he believes in such rotf— Stanley gravely sent for a camp chair, and respectfully seated the fetish in it, so that Nfjantgbu's ancestors might be present at the conference! and when lunoh-tima came, and Ngauteha squirted palm wine

, _ _j—^. over the beaded skull of the fetish, aad Bpat chewed-up fish and manioc Into fS gaping mouth, Stanley with a seri__ face followed suit with weak claret aS water and minced chicken. The result was that Ngantshu signed a treaty, and was • for ever after Stanley s friend, fla doubt long since the Baptist missionaries, or the fathers of tbe Catholic mission esS Wished at the mouth of the Kwa, taught Ngantshu that his ancestral fetta is foolish, and useless, and dirty, and hay, gently persuaded him to put It away; bot this result would not have been eaai« brought about had Stanley, on his flr. 