A true specimen of the variety of white men
who live in the sea. "Only look at his hair; it is made quite straight
by the sea-water!"
I explained to them again and again that, when it was said
we came out of the sea, it did not mean that we came from beneath the water;
but the fiction has been widely spread in the interior by the Mambari
that the real white men live in the sea, and the myth was too good not to be
taken advantage of by my companions; so, notwithstanding my injunctions,
I believe that, when I was out of hearing, my men always
represented themselves as led by a genuine merman: "Just see his hair!"
If I returned from walking to a little distance, they would remark of some
to whom they had been holding forth, "These people want to see your hair."
As the strangers had woolly hair like themselves, I had to give up the idea
of meeting any thing more European than two half-caste Portuguese,
engaged in trading for slaves, ivory, and bees'-wax.
16TH. After a short march we came to a most lovely valley
about a mile and a half wide, and stretching away eastward
up to a low prolongation of Monakadzi.
