378 ACROSS AFRICA. [Chap. 



September, a bullock, SO fickle ill liis attachments and utterly heartless and 

 1875. unfeeling was he. 



Among other excuses for stopping here, Alvez expressed his 

 opinion that Joao's caravan was just in front, and by starting 

 we should miss meeting him. 



While we were thus detained, a plot to rob me came to light, 

 and, had it not been frustrated, I should have been altogether 

 deprived of the means of buying the fish upon which we had 

 now to depend as an exchange for food. 



It appeared that Coimbra and some other men, including two 

 of Alvez's slaves, having heard that I possessed some viongwa, 

 determined to make an attempt at stealing them. They in- 

 duced one of my people to enter into the plot, and rewarded 

 him for his complicity by paying him about one-third of their 

 value in beads, on the understanding that he would commit 

 the theft. But, fortunately, my faithful Jumah, well knowing 

 how valuable the viongwa were, had locked them up securely 

 in a box w^ith my books, and thus prevented their being stolen. 



Coimbra and his limited company now heard that I had only 

 two left, and when they saw one of these expended in the pur- 

 chase of a goat, it awakened them to the rottenness of their 

 speculation, and convinced them that there was little prospect 

 of getting any return for the beads they had expended in brib- 

 ing my man. 



Feeling no shame whatever in declaring themselves thieves, 

 and being abetted by Alvez, they brought a claim not only for 

 the value of the beads used to encourage my man to rob me, 

 but also, with an effrontery almost past belief, for the value of 

 the fish they would have purchased with the viongwa had the 

 intended robbery been completed. Of course, I objected to 

 this preposterous claim with indignation ; but Coimbra and the 

 others openly declared that they would seize as a slave the man 

 who had been bribed, if their demand were not settled. 



I told Alvez, in unmistakable language, my opinion of those 

 making this unheard-of claim, as also of others supporting them, 

 and thus aiding and abetting barefaced thieving. He replied 

 that if it were not settled, he would probably be robbed, and 

 impressed upon me that we were not in a civilized country. 

 Coimbra and the rest were, he said, '"'•Qcntes hravos,'^ and M'ould 



