XXXIII 



THREE SLAVE GIRLS 



289 



present of three handsome slave girls. Can the 

 reader wonder that I was in a quandary as 

 to what to do with such a useless encumbrance? 

 Let the bashful young man ask himself what plan he 

 would adopt if suddenly saddled with a trio of dusky 

 belles, and he will begin to 

 realize my difficulty ! Bootle's 

 predicament with his baby 

 cannot be classed in the same 

 category : it was merely 

 child's play. 



On my approach, one of 

 the girls told me that some 

 four weeks previously she had 

 been taken from a village on 

 the Locheringo River, and 

 that her two companions had 

 been carried off by Mataka's 

 people from a village near 

 the English mission station 

 at Unangu. She piteously 

 begged me to keep her and 

 her companions, for, if I 



refused, they would, she said, simply be treated 

 as slaves and spend the rest of their lives in 

 absolute misery. Feeling sorry for the poor 

 creatures, I told Mperembe's men to inform their 

 chief that I had neither gunpowder nor percus- 



u 



SULTAN MI'EREMBE. 



