INSUBORDINATION SUPPRESSED. 375 



fears expressed by my people, and threatened to return if presents 

 were not made at once. But my men had never left their own 

 country before except for rapine and murder. When they for- 

 merly came to a village they were in the habit of killing numbers 

 of the inhabitants, and then taking a few young men to serve as 

 guides to the next place. As this was their first attempt at an 

 opposite line of conduct, and as they were without their shields, 

 they felt defenseless among the greedy Chiboque, and some allow- 

 ance must be made for them on that account. 



Saturday, 11th. Reached a small village on the banks of a 

 narrow stream. I was too ill to go out of my little covering ex- 

 cept to quell a mutiny which began to show itself among some 

 of the Batoka and Ambonda of our party. They grumbled, as 

 they often do against their chiefs, when they think them partial 

 in their gifts, because they supposed that I had shown a prefer- 

 ence in the distribution of the beads ; but the beads I had given 

 to my principal men were only sufficient to purchase a scanty 

 meal, and I had hastened on to this village in order to slaughter 

 a tired ox, and give them all a feast as well as a rest on Sunday, 

 as preparation for the journey before us. I explained this to 

 them, and thought their grumbling was allayed. I soon sank 

 into a state of stupor, which the fever sometimes produced, and 

 was oblivious to all their noise in slaughtering. On Sunday the 

 mutineers were making a terrible din in preparing a skin they 

 had procured. I requested them twice, by the man who attend- 

 ed me, to be more quiet, as the noise pained me ; but as they paid 

 no attention to this civil request, I put out my head, and, repeat- 

 ing it myself, was answered by an impudent laugh. Knowing 

 that discipline would be at an end if this mutiny were not quelled, 

 and that our lives depended on vigorously upholding authority, 

 I seized a double-barreled pistol, and darted forth from the dom- 

 icile, looking, I suppose, so savage as to put them to a precipitate 

 flight. As some remained within hearing, I told them that I 

 must maintain discipline, though at the expense of some of their 

 limbs ; so long as we traveled together they must remember that 

 I was master, and not they. There being but little room to doubt 

 my determination, they immediately became very obedient, and 

 never afterward gave me any trouble, or imagined that they had 

 any right to my property. 



