GBEEDY GUIDES. 353 



My men were as much astonished as myself at the demand for 

 payment for leave to pass, and the almost entire neglect of the 

 rules of hospitality. Katende gave us only a little meal and ma- 

 nioc, and a fowl. Being detained two days by heavy rains, we felt 

 that a good stock of patience was necessary in traveling through 

 this country in the rainy season. 



Passing onward without seeing Katende, we crossed a small 

 rivulet, the Sengko, by which we had encamped, and after two 

 hours came to another, the Totelo, which was somewhat larger, 

 and had a bridge over it. At the farther end of this structure 

 stood a negro, who demanded fees. He said the bridge was his : 

 the path his ; the guides were his children ; and if we did not 

 pay him he would prevent farther progress. This piece of civil- 

 ization I was not prepared to meet, and stood a few seconds look- 

 ing at our bold toll-keeper, when one of my men took off three 

 copper bracelets, which paid for the whole party. The negro 

 was a better man than he at first seemed, for he immediately 

 went to his garden and brought us some leaves of tobacco as 

 a present. 



When we had got fairly away from the villages, the guides from 

 Kangenke sat down and told us that there were three paths in 

 front, and, if we did not at once present them with a cloth, they 

 would leave us to take whichever we might like best. As I 

 had pointed out the direction in which Loanda lay, and had only 

 employed them for the sake of knowing the paths between vil- 

 lages which lay along our route, and always objected when they 

 led us in any other than the Loanda direction, I wished my men 

 now to go on without the guides, trusting to ourselves to choose 

 the path which would seem to lead us in the direction we had al- 

 ways followed. But Mashauana, fearing lest we might wander, 

 asked leave to give his own cloth, and when the guides saw that, 

 they came forward shouting " Averie, Averie !" 



In the afternoon of this day we came to a valley about a mile 

 wide, filled with clear, fast -flowing water. The men on foot 

 were chin deep in crossing, and we three on ox-back got wet to 

 the middle, the weight of the animals preventing them from 

 swimming. A thunder-shower descending completed the partial 

 drenching of the plain, and gave a cold, uncomfortable " packing 

 in a wet blanket" that night. Next day we found another flood- 



