292 ACKOSS AFEICA. [Chap. 



October, dering us were still remaining. These men had now returned 

 ^®'^*- to their homes, and the villages had resumed their normal state, 

 and women and children ran along-side the caravan, chattering 

 and laughing. 



When we camped, the chief of the district brought me a 

 large bundle of grass-cloth and some goats, as payment for hav- 

 ing attacked us without provocation. I accepted one goat, and 

 gave him some beads as a token of friendship, remarking that, 

 unlike some other travelei*s, we were not looking for slaves and 

 endeavoring to pick quarrels, but only desired to see the coun- 

 try, and be friendly with the people. But I took the opportu- 

 nity of informing him that we should always defend ourselves 

 if attacked, and, as they had already learned, we wei'e quite 

 strong enough to take care of ourselves. 



I afterward found that Mona Kasanga, although acting as in- 

 terpreter during this palaver, and hearing my remarks, tried to 

 extract something from the chief on his own account. Fort- 

 unately I discovered his little game, or the chief would have 

 come to the conclusion that the white man was given to talk- 

 ing about friendship and pretending to be generous, and yet al- 

 lowed his men to take the offering in a roundabout manner. 



The actual reason of our being attacked was, that a party 

 from a Portuguese caravan had been within five miles of Kam- 

 wawi, destroying villages, murdering men, and carrying off 

 women and children as slaves. The natives naturally connect- 

 ed me with the slave- hunters, more especially as I had made 

 particular inquiries res2>ecting them and whence they came ; 

 and no doubt they were supposed to be friends whom we 

 wished to join in carrying on these barbarities. 



We now marched through the disti'icts of Munkullah and 

 Mpanga Sanga, over a plain country with occasional valleys, 

 through the Kilimachio range — a semicircular sweep of gran- 

 ite hills of every shape and form — and crossed several consid- 

 erable streams, which flowed eastward to the Lualaba— not to 

 that branch of the river seen by Dr. Livingstone quitting Lake 

 Moero, but the one of which the sources were passed by the 

 Pombeiros on their journey to Tete from Kassanci in the be- 

 ginning of this century. 



At the principal village of Mpanga Sanga I met a very intel- 



