160. A JOURNEY UP THE RIVER CONGO. 
are erowing. Strange that the sugar-cane, another of the 
many gifts from rich America to needy Africa, should 
have spread so quickly and so far inland, and have become 
so identified with the habits and customs of its new culti- 
vators. Though this cane was originally an inhabitant of 
Eastern Asia, and was introduced by the Arabs to Europe, 
and by the Europeans to America, still Western Africa 
received it from the latter continent in the seventeenth 
century through the hands of the Portuguese.* 
March 3rd.—I obtained this morning a_ basket-work 
fish-trap from a boy, with a few curious fish in it. Most 
of them were too damaged to be of any use, but one, 
fortunately just caught and still alive, was in excellent 
preservation ; so I set to work and drew it as we went 
along in the boat. Just as I was finishing the sketch we 
approached a village called Mbamo, where two or three 
tattered French flags were flying. At first the natives 
answered civilly our questions, and told us that Malamine | 
(Malamine was a Senegalese sergeant of De Brazza’s) had 
civen them the tricoloured banners of France; but after- 
wards, when we proposed landing to cook the lunch, they 
began to grow very insolent and menacing—they yelled 
and shrieked at us in gradually increasing wrath, and, 
whilst the women-and children fled into the village, the 
men got their guns and began cramming stones into the 
muzzles. They were very near firing, but.the Zanzibaris 
showed their Sniders opportunely, and at the same time 
rowed out into the stream, and we passed the place 
without breaking the peace. Curiously enough, on 
rounding a little point of rocks, and arriving at another 
village, we found the people there perfectly friendly and 
pleasant. They waded out to the boat and shook hands, 
and looked at my sketch-book with screams of delight. 
* Since writing this, I find on “examining the subject ba means of 
Cameron’s and Stanley’s books, together with other authorities, that 
the sugar-cane scems to be cultivated right across Africa fram east to 
west. Possibly, therefore, the West Africans owe it to the Arabs, who 
brought it to the east coast a thousand years ago, whenee it has spread 
all over the continent, 
