3i6 A HUNTER'S WANDERINGS ch. 



make war upon them, in order to chastise them for 

 their insolence. As far as I could learn, I do not 

 think he finds much difficulty in getting these licences 

 granted. But I am now commencing to relate not 

 what I have seen, but what 1 have heard, and reports 

 are not by any means to be relied on. Still, he is a 

 man who possesses both the will and the power to 

 do immense harm — a slave-trader and a murderer. 



I remained here on the island with Mendon^a until 

 the 13th of December. The smallpox was raging 

 among his people, two, three, and four of whom used 

 to die every day. Owen, not considering it safe to 

 remain, went over and made himself a skerm on 

 the mainland, where Franz, my Basuto boy, was with 

 the donkeys. During this time old Canyemba paid 

 us a visit in full dress, with a large cavalry sword. 

 Mendon^a received him with several salutes of 

 musketry, and in an apparently very friendly manner, 

 though he afterwards informed me that he was an 

 awful scoundrel, and calmly added that he was not 

 the friend of Canyemba, but of Canyemba's ivory. 

 " That," said he, " is the friendship of a white man 

 for a black man." I admired his candour and 

 marvelled at his hypocrisy. A few days afterwards 

 Mendon^a and I paid a visit to old Canyemba. He 

 had a large barrack-looking house, and at the back, 

 and enclosed with a high palisade, were the residences 

 of the members of his harem, who, to judge from the 

 size of the enclosed space, must have been pretty 

 numerous. His men had shot two hippopotami during 

 the nicht, and the heads had been cut off whole and 

 brought up to the house. At dinner he gave us china 

 plates, knives and forks, and a better-prepared meal 

 than I had tasted for some time. The following 

 morning we returned in canoes to Cassoko, which we 



