He Was Highly Pleased
With The Large Calabashes Of Clarified Butter And Fat Which Sekeletu
Had Sent Him, And Wished To Detain Kolimbota, That He Might Send A Present
Back To Sekeletu By His Hands.
This proposition we afterward discovered
was Kolimbota's own, as he had heard so much about the ferocity of the
Tribes
through which we were to pass that he wished to save his skin.
It will be seen farther on that he was the only one of our party
who returned with a wound.
We were particularly struck, in passing through the village,
with the punctiliousness of manners shown by the Balonda.
The inferiors, on meeting their superiors in the street,
at once drop on their knees and rub dust on their arms and chest;
they continue the salutation of clapping the hands until
the great ones have passed. Sambanza knelt down in this manner
till the son of Shinte had passed him.
We several times saw the woman who occupies the office of drawer of water
for Shinte; she rings a bell as she passes along to give warning to all
to keep out of her way; it would be a grave offense for any one
to come near her, and exercise an evil influence by his presence
on the drink of the chief. I suspect that offenses of the slightest character
among the poor are made the pretext for selling them or their children
to the Mambari. A young man of Lobale had fled into the country of Shinte,
and located himself without showing himself to the chief.
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