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even than the food was the water, which was plentiful and clean. They were led out on the sand spit and allowed to lie flat on their bellies and drink as much as they wanted. It was warm and tasted of mud but it was clean and refreshing. Then they were made to squat ankle-deep in water and relieve themselves if they could.

    The whips stood them on their feet again and the Kru canoe boys, who had been awaiting their arrival, walked down the long straggling line of the caffle, counting on their fingers. When they had counted off both hands three times, they cut the neck-binding rope and marched their thirty men off to a waiting canoe. Although the canoes were large enough to accommodate twelve paddlers, it was a tight squeeze to force thirty men into such a limited space. The end man in the line was whipped into the canoe after it had been shoved off into deep water. He was boosted over the side and held down with his legs spread wide apart. The next man climbed in and was pushed up as closely to the first man as possible, his buttocks grinding against the other's groin, his elbows resting on the other's knees. And so it went, one after another, until the canoe was packed tightly with men, buttock to groin, each immovable from the hips down. Now, for the first time, the metal accouterments of slavery appeared. A light chain was run along the gunwales of the canoe and handcuffs of iron were spaced along the chain, snapped over the wrists of the slaves and locked, thus immobilizing hands and arms as well as legs and feet. From the loaded canoe, a strong rope ran to another canoe which accommodated the Krus and a certain amount of baggage. One by one the canoes were loaded, and they started off down the river.
    The whole operation was managed with the utmost economy of motion. The Krus were experts at their trade. They constantly plied the river from its delta to various spots which were used as rendezvous for overland caravans, meeting them and taking the slave caffle down to the various factories on the shore, then returning with the trade goods and meeting another caravan.
    Night came quickly with an impenetrable blackness through which neither moon nor stars could be seen. With the night came hordes of mosquitoes, and now Tamboura began to be glad for what little was left of his clay anointing of the night before and for the mud which had hardened on his back after the brief rest when he had stretched out full length on the earth during the childbirth. He was seated between Sabumbo and the young slave who had grinned at him, somewhere in the middle of the canoe. With hands and feet both immobilized there was no way to ward the insects off, but by leaning forward and brushing his head against Sabumbo's back, he could rid his brother of some of

    the pests, and he was grateful for the almost metallic scraping of the hair of the man behind him on his own back.
    After an hour, every muscle in his body cried out for re- i lief. As the interminable night wore on, Tamboura found i some relief by leaning forward and resting his head on i Sabumbo's shoulders and then, when aching muscles began i to cramp in this position, he leaned back and rested his \ head on the chest of the fellow behind him, whose name he i discovered to be M'dong. He felt closer to Sabumbo, however, ; because of their common background, and each found that i talking helped to pass the long sleepless hours of the ; night. It kept up their spirits and quieted their unknown fears. ■
    "As for myself, I do not mind, Tamboura," Sabumbo ad- i mitted. "Life in the village held nothing for me after my father and mother died. I went to live with my uncle and i from that day on I planned to get away even if it meant i taking a woman from another village and being a slave to her family, because I had no goods with which to pay her bride-price. The old man and the old woman didn't want me, although she was never unkind to me when I was a kid. After I became a hunter, she