386 JOURNEY TO THE COAST. Chap. XIX. 



therefore to hire a canoe from the Mokaba people, 

 offering" a good price for the use of it. The wiseheads 

 of the A'illag-e took the matter into consideration, bul 

 I could not prevail upon them to lend me the canoe. 

 They did not think they should see it again, and 

 they would not accompany me to Nchiengain's and 

 return with the canoe. There was the same disin- 

 clination shown here to travelling with me, as I have 

 described before ; they were all afraid that I should 

 sell them as slaves when I had got them out of their 

 territory. They were willing to sell me the canoe 

 outright, but I was now too poor to buy it. 



Before I left Mokaba, Kombila made me a fare- 

 well speech, and entreated me to come back again 

 and bring trade. All the elders, who stood around 

 us, backed up the prayer ; " We w^ant trade," they 

 said, " we love the wdiite man's things ; oh ! why 

 are we so far from the white man's country ?" 



On our march to Nchiengaiu's, we passed the 

 village of Dilalo, where, on our eastward march, the 

 inhabitants had set fire to the prairie to oppose our 

 progress. A crowd of women came after us as we 

 took the path leading outside of the place, and be- 

 sought us to come in and rest ourselves in the vil- 

 lage. They w^anted beads, they saicl^ like the women 

 of the other towns, and when I persisted in my 

 refusal to enter a place where we had been treated so 

 ill, they set to cursing their own men for being the 

 cause of it all. 



We slept at night in a beautiful little wood by the 

 banks of a pleasant stream. 



August 7ih. We passed several villages early in 



