Chap. VII. EOBBED BY THE ASHIRA PEOPLE. 137 



especially when I saw that all the people of the 



village knew how I had been plundered. I detected 



them often whispering secretly and casting furtive 



glances towards my hut ; but orders had been given 



to every Ashira man, woman, and child to keep 



the matter secret from me, and not a single one 



betrayed it. It is wonderfid how even the young 



children here are tauglit to be " discreet." I was 



obliged to act the hypocrite and pretend that I 



believed Ondonga was ignorant of the arrival of 



Arangui. The day following the arrival of my men, 



Ondonga, Mintcho, and several others came to me and 



told me they would endeavour to persuade Arangui 



to give up the man. Arangui was obstinate, and 



neither the arguments of his friends nor my threats 



could prevail upon him. It appeared that two years 



previously the Otandos had seized a relative of his, 



and still kept him in ncliogo (the native stocks). 



Here was a sample of the complicated difficulties 



a poor African traveller has to contend with. At 



length Arangui fell ill ; and, in his superstitious 



fears that I had caused his illness, he released the 



man, but with limbs so cruelly lacerated by the 



wooden blocks in which he had been confined, that 



he was unable to move for several days afterwards. 



Meantime the news of Olenda's death and my 



detention had reached Goumbi, and Quengueza had 



sent word that he must come and fetch me back, that 



Olenda had left no people to carry the white man's 



goods to the next country, and so forth. The men 



who brought the message told us (what I afterwards 



learnt to be true) that all the negroes who had ac- 

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