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We learned that the hammock boys are fighting to carry Bill's hammock, because they like cigarette buts, and more come out of his hammock than out of the other three combined. They get several puffs from the cigarette when we consider it finished, and even share one butt between two or three of the boys. The usual curious crowd hung around the windows of the rest house watching our every move. I tossed a cigarette butt out the window, a small boy picked it up, and put it, still burning, in the pocket of his shirt. The school teacher had to call out to him that it would burn him!

March 21 - 

We got down to the waterside about 8 o'clock, the Paramount Chief and the school teacher being on hand to say goodbye to us and wish us good luck and a safe journey. It took nearly an hour again to get our gear across the river, and we walked all morning, and for an hour after lunch (which we ate in the forest) along a beautiful forest trail. The only drawback is the bridges, which happen along about every fifteen minutes. They are usually two limber saplings, tied together with rattan, and require a better head and a steadier equilibrium than I possess. I finally gave up trying to get across them by myself, and adopted Bobor, our overseer, as my personal guide. When he walked in front of me, and I put my hands on his shoulders and concentrated on following his footsteps I forgot to look down at the stream below me, and was dizzy no longer.

The little dormouse slept most of the day in my pocket. He is tied with a short light piece of twine, and I fastened one end of it to my zipper in the front of my shirt so that he wouldn't scamper away when I wasn't watching him.

We reached Balala about two thirty, and although it was early in the day to make camp, it seemed like a nice little town, and it was far to the next one. The Chief was not in the village, but out on his farm, and we spent the afternoon sitting in the palaver kitchen waiting for him to return and assign us a house. The palaver kitchen, of which there are usually several in a village, consists of a low mud wall, about two or three feet high, with a high thatched roof - all sides open. This one was near the river, with huts crowded close about us on three sides. When the Chief finally got in it was nearly dark, and he said there was only one small house available, but that we were welcome to sleep in the palaver house. We accordingly set up our four cots and mosquito nets side by side, lit our pressure kerosene lantern, and then dined once more in the presence of all the villagers. They were a quiet crowd here, more so than at Dobli's Island, and they sat in solemn rows on the ground as though they were watching a theatrical performance. Two or three of the women wore leopard teeth on necklaces, and S1 tried to buy them, but they refused to sell at any price.

We curtained off a small annex to the kitchen, where we could bathe and undress in private, and then climbed into bed in full view of the natives. It was a gorgeous night, with a full moon making the village as black and white as a wood-cut. As I wrote up my notes I observed that it was the first day of spring, which seems incredible in this tropical setting. Charlie the cook is still among an un-