Kurtz! They say the hair goes on growing sometimes, but this⁠—ah⁠—specimen, was impressively bald. The wilderness had patted him on the head, and, behold, it was like a ball⁠—an ivory ball; it had caressed him, and⁠—lo!⁠—he had withered; it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation. He was its spoiled and pampered favourite. Ivory? I should think so. Heaps of it, stacks of it. The old mud shanty was bursting with it. You would think there was not a single tusk left either above or below the ground in the whole country. ‘Mostly fossil,’ the manager had remarked, disparagingly. It was no more fossil than I am; but they call it fossil when it is dug up. It appears these niggers do bury the tusks sometimes⁠—but evidently they couldn’t bury this parcel deep enough to save the gifted Mr.