298 ACROSS AFEICA. [Chap. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



Jiiniah Merikani. — Coal. — A Portuguese Trader. — His Followers. — Kasongo's Chief 

 Wife. — Jose Antonio Alvez. — His History. — Warned against Mata Yafa. — Lake 

 Mohrya. — An Inquisitive Lady. — Peculiarity respecting Names. — Alvez's Habita- 

 tion. — Consuming your own Smoke. — Taking Bilal down a Peg. — Well-fortified 

 Villages. — View of Lake Mohrya. — Huts on Piles. — An Amphibious Race. — Xo 

 Visitors allowed. — A Spiritualistic Medium. — Skulls of Old Enemies. — Urua. — 

 Kasongo's Dominion. — Its Government. — The Social Scale among Warua. — Muti- 

 lation for Small Offenses. — Kasongo professes to be a God. — His Morals. — His 

 Family Harem. — Unfaithful Wives. — Kasongo's Bedroom Furniture. — Rule as to 

 Fires and Cooking. — Devil-huts and Idols. — The Great Idol Priests. — The Idol's 

 Wife. — Dress and Tattoo Marks. 



October, JuMAH Merikani had been here nearly two years, trading 

 1874. chiefly in ivory, which was fairly plentiful and cheap. Being 

 an intelligent man, and having traveled much since leaving Tan- 

 ganyika, he and some of his men were able to give me a vast 

 amount of geographical information, and the key to what Mona 

 Kasanga and others had told me while traveling from Tipo- 

 tipo's camp. He had been to the gold and copper mines at 

 Katanga ; to Msama's country, where he found coal, of which 

 he gave me a small specimen ; had taken the road between 

 Lakes Moero and Tanganyika, crossing the Lukuga ; and had 

 formed a permanent camp at Kirna, on Lake Lanji — the lake 

 Ulenge or Kamorondo of Livingstone — whence he had come to 

 this place. 



The Portuguese, who had been up here rather less than a 

 year, and were principally engaged in the slave-trade, were ac- 

 quainted with my arrival, and sent a messenger to say that the 

 leader of tlie caravan would call upon me the following day. 



A number of his ])et)ple came over, and were a wild, rough- 

 looking set of nearly nuked savages, carrying old Portuguese 

 flint-lock guns, with inordinately long barrels ornamented M'ith 

 an immense number of brass rings. They were very inquisi- 

 tive, and wanted to see every thing I possessed, and expressed 



