In This Case, After Vociferating Some Time,
The Would-Be Offended Party Came And Said To My Man That, If They Exchanged
Some Small Gift, All Would Be Right, But, My Man Taking No Notice Of Him,
He Went Off Rather Crestfallen.
My men were as much astonished as myself at the demand for payment
for leave to pass, and the
Almost entire neglect of the rules of hospitality.
Katende gave us only a little meal and manioc, and a fowl.
Being detained two days by heavy rains, we felt that a good stock of patience
was necessary in traveling through this country in the rainy season.
Passing onward without seeing Katende, we crossed a small rivulet,
the Sengko, by which we had encamped, and after two hours came to another,
the Totelo, which was somewhat larger, and had a bridge over it.
At the farther end of this structure stood a negro, who demanded fees.
He said the bridge was his; the path his; the guides were his children;
and if we did not pay him he would prevent farther progress.
This piece of civilization I was not prepared to meet,
and stood a few seconds looking at our bold toll-keeper,
when one of my men took off three copper bracelets, which paid
for the whole party. The negro was a better man than he at first seemed,
for he immediately went to his garden and brought us some leaves of tobacco
as a present.
When we had got fairly away from the villages, the guides from Kangenke
sat down and told us that there were three paths in front,
and, if we did not at once present them with a cloth, they would leave us
to take whichever we might like best. As I had pointed out
the direction in which Loanda lay, and had only employed them
for the sake of knowing the paths between villages which lay along our route,
and always objected when they led us in any other than the Loanda direction,
I wished my men now to go on without the guides, trusting to ourselves
to choose the path which would seem to lead us in the direction
we had always followed. But Mashauana, fearing lest we might wander,
asked leave to give his own cloth, and when the guides saw that,
they came forward shouting "Averie, Averie!"
In the afternoon of this day we came to a valley about a mile wide,
filled with clear, fast-flowing water. The men on foot were chin deep
in crossing, and we three on ox-back got wet to the middle,
the weight of the animals preventing them from swimming.
A thunder-shower descending completed the partial drenching of the plain,
and gave a cold, uncomfortable "packing in a wet blanket" that night.
Next day we found another flooded valley about half a mile wide,
with a small and now deep rivulet in its middle, flowing rapidly
to the S.S.E., or toward the Kasai. The middle part of this flood,
being the bed of what at other times is the rivulet, was so rapid
that we crossed by holding on to the oxen, and the current soon dashed them
to the opposite bank; we then jumped off, and, the oxen being
relieved of their burdens, we could pull them on to the shallower part.
The rest of the valley was thigh deep and boggy, but holding on
by the belt which fastened the blanket to the ox, we each floundered
through the nasty slough as well as we could. These boggy parts,
lying parallel to the stream, were the most extensive we had come to:
those mentioned already were mere circumscribed patches; these extended
for miles along each bank; but even here, though the rapidity of the current
was very considerable, the thick sward of grass was "laid" flat
along the sides of the stream, and the soil was not abraded so much
as to discolor the flood. When we came to the opposite side of this valley,
some pieces of the ferruginous conglomerate, which forms the capping
to all other rocks in a large district around and north of this, cropped out,
and the oxen bit at them as if surprised by the appearance of stone as much
as we were; or it may have contained some mineral of which they stood in need.
We had not met with a stone since leaving Shinte's. The country is covered
with deep alluvial soil of a dark color and very fertile.
In the afternoon we came to another stream, nyuana Loke (or child of Loke),
with a bridge over it. The men had to swim off to each end of the bridge,
and when on it were breast deep; some preferred holding on
by the tails of the oxen the whole way across. I intended to do this too;
but, riding to the deep part, before I could dismount and seize the helm
the ox dashed off with his companions, and his body sank so deep
that I failed in my attempt even to catch the blanket belt,
and if I pulled the bridle the ox seemed as if he would come backward upon me,
so I struck out for the opposite bank alone. My poor fellows
were dreadfully alarmed when they saw me parted from the cattle,
and about twenty of them made a simultaneous rush into the water
for my rescue, and just as I reached the opposite bank one seized my arm,
and another threw his around my body. When I stood up, it was most gratifying
to see them all struggling toward me. Some had leaped off the bridge,
and allowed their cloaks to float down the stream. Part of my goods,
abandoned in the hurry, were brought up from the bottom after I was safe.
Great was the pleasure expressed when they found that I could swim,
like themselves, without the aid of a tail, and I did and do feel grateful
to these poor heathens for the promptitude with which they dashed in to save,
as they thought, my life.
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