CAPTAIN TUCKEY’S NARRATIVE, 165 
by the promise of handsome pay, and still more through the 
assurance of safety offered by our muskets, that I could pre- 
vail on a guide to promise to accompany me to banza Inga. 
All my endeavours to find a slave trader who knew some- 
thing of the river have been fruitless. One man at Cooloo 
presented himself, and said he had been a month’s journey 
from that place, but always travelled by land, except in the 
passage of several rivers by canoes and fords ; the direction 
of his course appeared to be to the N. E. and the country, 
according to him, more mountainous than where we are. 
Indeed it appears that the people of Congo never go them- 
selves for slaves, but that they are always brought to them 
by those they call bushmen, who, they say, have no towns 
nor acknowledge any government. All however agree 
in asserting that the country on the south is sull more diffi- 
cult than that on the north, which, together with there ap- 
pearing to be no traces of the Portuguese missions on the 
latter,* as well as the river again taking a direction to 
the north, induces me to prefer this side for my farther 
progress. 
Aug. 19. In pursuance of my intention to endeavour to 
* At Noki the crucifixes left by the missionaries were strangely mixed with the 
native fetiches, and the people seemed by no means improved by this melange 
of Christian and Pagan idolatry. 
