Chap. IV. BODY-GUARD OP COMMI MEN. 71 



friendly sea, and prayed God that I might live to 

 see it again. 



My expedition was an affair of great importance for 

 the whole of the Commi tribe. Quengueza, who was 

 more disinterested than the other chiefs — for he was 

 actuated only by a sense of the importance the friend- 

 ship of the white man conferred upon him — came down 

 the river to bear me company ; Oleuga-Yombi came 

 from Cape St. Catherine to assist in the ceremony of 

 my departure, with an eye to getting as much out of 

 me as he could, and Ranpano, with his nephew and 

 heir, Djombouai, attended to accompany me part of 

 the way. 



My stores and outfit filled two large canoes. I had 

 no less than forty-seven large chests of goods, besides 

 ten boxes containing my photographic apparatus and 

 chemicals, and fifty voluminous bundles of miscel- 

 laneous articles. I had also in ammunition 500 lbs. 

 of coarse and fine powder, 350 lbs. of shot, and 3,000 

 ball cartridges. For the transport of these things by 

 land I should require, including my body-guard of 

 the Commi tribe, more than 100 men. I chose for 

 my body-guard ten faithful negroes, some of whom 

 had accompanied me on my former journey. It was 

 on these men that my own safety, among the savage 

 and unfriendly tribes we might expect to meet Avith in 

 the far interior, depended. I knew I could thoroughly 

 rely upon them, and that, come what might, they 

 would never hurt a hair of my head. It would have 

 suited my plans better if I could have obtained 

 twenty-five Commi men, but this was not possible. 

 Many were willing to go, but their parents objected. 



