210 OUR ENCAMPMENT SURROUNDED. 



of meal; scorning the meat he had accepted, he demanded 

 either a man, an ox, a gun, powder, cloth, or a shell; and, 

 in the event of refusal to comply with his demand, he inti- 

 mated his intention to prevent our farther progress. We 

 replied, we should have thought ourselves fools if we had 

 scorned his small present and demanded other food instead; 

 and, even supposing we had possessed the articles named, 

 no black man ought to impose a tribute on a party that did 

 not trade in slaves. The servants who brought the mes- 

 sage said that, when sent to the Mambari, they had always 

 got a quantity of cloth from them for their master, and now 

 expected the same, or something else as an equivalent, 

 from me. 



We heard some of the Chiboque remark, "They have 

 only five guns;" and about mid-day Njambi collected all his 

 people and surrounded our encampment. Their object was 

 evidently to plunder us of every thing. My men seized 

 their javelins, and stood on the defensive, while the young 

 Chiboque had drawn their swords and brandished them 

 with great fury. Some even pointed their guns at me, and 

 nodded to each other, as much as to say, " This is the way 

 we shall do with him." I sat on my camp-stool, with my 

 double-barrelled gun across my knees, and invited the chief 

 to be seated also. When he and his counsellors had sat 

 down on the ground in front of me, I asked what crime 

 we had committed that he had come armed in that way. 

 He replied that one of my men, Pitsane, while sitting at 

 the fire that morning, had, in spitting, allowed a small 

 quantity of the saliva to fall on the leg of one of his men, 

 and this "guilt" he wanted to be settled by the fine of a 

 man, ox, or gun. Pitsane admitted the fact of a little 

 saliva having fallen on the Chiboque, and, in proof of its 

 being a pure accident, mentioned that he had given the 

 man a piece of meat, by way of making friends, just befoi'e 

 it happened, and wiped it off with his hand as soon as it 

 fell. In reference to a man being given, I declared that wo 

 were all ready to die rather than give up one of our num- 



