Having, On The Afore-Mentioned Date, Reached The Village Of Njambi,
One Of The Chiefs Of The Chiboque, We Intended To Pass A Quiet Sunday;
And Our Provisions Being Quite Spent, I Ordered A Tired Riding-Ox
To Be Slaughtered.
As we wished to be on good terms with all,
we sent the hump and ribs to Njambi, with the explanation that this
was the customary tribute to chiefs in the part from which we had come,
and that we always honored men in his position.
He returned thanks,
and promised to send food. Next morning he sent an impudent message,
with a very small present of meal; scorning the meat he had accepted,
he demanded either a man, an ox, a gun, powder, cloth, or a shell;
and in the event of refusal to comply with his demand,
he intimated his intention to prevent our further progress. We replied,
we should have thought ourselves fools if we had scorned his small present,
and demanded other food instead; and even supposing we had possessed
the articles named, no black man ought to impose a tribute on a party
that did not trade in slaves. The servants who brought the message said that,
when sent to the Mambari, they had always got a quantity of cloth from them
for their master, and now expected the same, or something else
as an equivalent, from me.
We heard some of the Chiboque remark, "They have only five guns;"
and about midday, Njambi collected all his people, and surrounded
our encampment.
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