They Lamented Having Left Their Shields At Home
By Command Of Sekeletu, Who Feared That, If They Carried These,
They Might Be More Disposed To Be Overbearing In Their Demeanor To The Tribes
We Should Meet.
We had proceeded on the principles of peace and conciliation,
and the foregoing treatment shows in what light our conduct was viewed;
in fact, we were taken for interlopers trying to cheat
the revenue of the tribe.
They had been accustomed to get a slave or two
from every slave-trader who passed them, and now that we disputed the right,
they viewed the infringement on what they considered lawfully due
with most virtuous indignation.
MARCH 6TH. We were informed that the people on the west
of the Chiboque of Njambi were familiar with the visits of slave-traders;
and it was the opinion of our guides from Kangenke that
so many of my companions would be demanded from me, in the same manner
as the people of Njambi had done, that I should reach the coast
without a single attendant; I therefore resolved to alter our course
and strike away to the N.N.E., in the hope that at some point farther north
I might find an exit to the Portuguese settlement of Cassange.
We proceeded at first due north, with the Kasabi villages on our right,
and the Kasau on our left. During the first twenty miles
we crossed many small, but now swollen streams, having the usual boggy banks,
and wherever the water had stood for any length of time
it was discolored with rust of iron.
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