18d 37' E.),
which may be called the boundary of the Portuguese claims to territory
on the west.
As I had now no change of clothing, I was glad to cower
under the shelter of my blanket, thankful to God for his goodness
in bringing us so far without losing one of the party.
4TH APRIL. We were now on the banks of the Quango,
a river one hundred and fifty yards wide, and very deep.
The water was discolored - a circumstance which we had observed
in no river in Londa or in the Makololo country. This fine river
flows among extensive meadows clothed with gigantic grass and reeds,
and in a direction nearly north.
The Quango is said by the natives to contain many venomous water-snakes,
which congregate near the carcass of any hippopotamus
that may be killed in it. If this is true, it may account
for all the villages we saw being situated far from its banks.
We were advised not to sleep near it; but, as we were anxious
to cross to the western side, we tried to induce some of the Bashinje
to lend us canoes for the purpose. This brought out the chief of these parts,
who informed us that all the canoe-men were his children,
and nothing could be done without his authority. He then made
the usual demand for a man, an ox, or a gun, adding that otherwise
we must return to the country from which we had come. As I did not believe
that this man had any power over the canoes of the other side, and suspected
that if I gave him my blanket - the only thing I now had in reserve -
he might leave us in the lurch after all, I tried to persuade my men to go
at once to the bank, about two miles off, and obtain possession of the canoes
before we gave up the blanket; but they thought that this chief
might attack us in the act of crossing, should we do so.
The chief came himself to our encampment and made his demand again.
My men stripped off the last of their copper rings and gave them;
but he was still intent on a man. He thought, as others did,
that my men were slaves. He was a young man, with his woolly hair
elaborately dressed: that behind was made up into a cone, about eight inches
in diameter at the base, carefully swathed round with red and black thread.
As I resisted the proposal to deliver up my blanket until they had placed us
on the western bank, this chief continued to worry us with his demands
till I was tired. My little tent was now in tatters,
and having a wider hole behind than the door in front, I tried in vain
to lie down out of sight of our persecutors. We were on a reedy flat,
and could not follow our usual plan of a small stockade,
in which we had time to think over and concoct our plans.
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