THE RAVINE DISTRICT 57 



and was delighted to see me again. He accompanied me to 

 the coast, and, as he was in rags, for the sake of auld-lang- 

 syne I rigged him out in a new cotton cloth. 



He related to me some curious experiences. West had sent 

 him and two others to a certain village to fetch a tusk of ivory. 

 Arrived at the village, one of the three remained in the hut 

 assigned to them by the natives, whilst the other two were told 

 to accompany two old men to the river. There the two natives 

 looked for an insignificant dry twig washed hither and thither by 

 the current. This twig was a buoy, and by pulling at it they 

 drew two magnificent tusks of ivory, each over live feet in length, 

 out of the river. Bom-bom and his companion were asked to 

 carry the tusks to the village. Encumbered with the heavy 

 load of ivory, they were suddenly set upon by young Wanandi 

 warriors in full war-paint of red earth and grease, who de- 

 prived them at once of their rifies and then threatened them 

 with death. Bom-bom tells me that if it had not been for the 

 two old men interceding with the young warriors, he and his 

 Swahili companion would have been massacred on the spot. 

 But one of the old men claimed him as a slave, and the other 

 claimed the Swahili. 



They now returned to the village. Here a pool of blood 

 was pointed out, as the spot where the third man they had 

 left at the village was killed during their absence. Near it 

 there were a few other drops of blood, said to be from a 

 chicken their companion was just killing for dinner, when the 

 treacherous murderers stabbed him to death from behind. 

 Bom-bom thought he had a chance of escaping, when no one 

 was watching ; but the young warriors were on the look-out, 

 and Bom-bom fied back to the old man's hut, where the mur- 

 derers were kept with difficulty from following and spearing 

 him. 



Bom-bom and the Swahili now resigned themselves to their 

 condition of slavery. They lived separated, as their owners 

 did not belong to the same household. The old man who 

 owned the Swahili decided one day to sell him, and for this 

 purpose took him to another village ; but such a wretched sum 

 was offered for the slave, that no sale was effected. The 

 Swahili was a very merry fellow who submitted to his slavery 

 with the greatest equanimity. The old man's daughter hap- 

 pened to be a widow with some children, and the Swahili slave 



