SELOLE'S HOSTILITY. 619 



highlands, but when we descended into the lowlands of Angola, 

 and here also, they began to fret on account of it. I myself felt 

 an oppressive steaminess in the atmosphere which I had not ex- 

 perienced on the higher lands. 



As the game was abundant and my party very large, I had 

 still to supply their wants with the gun. We slaughtered the 

 oxen only when unsuccessful in hunting. We always entered 

 into friendly relations with the head men of the different villages, 

 and they presented grain and other food freely. One man gave a 

 basinful of rice, the first we met with in the country. It is never 

 seen in the interior. He said he knew it was " white man's 

 corn," and when I wished to buy some more, he asked me to give 

 him a slave. This was the first symptom of the slave-trade on 

 this side of the country. The last of these friendly head men 

 was named Mobala ; and having passed him in peace, we had no 

 anticipation of any thing else ; but, after a few hours, we reached 

 Selole or Chilole, and found that he not only considered us ene- 

 mies, but had actually sent an express to raise the tribe of Mbu- 

 ruma against us. All the women of Selole had fled, and the few 

 people we met exhibited symptoms of terror. An armed party 

 had come from Mburuma in obedience to the call ; but the head 

 man of the company, being Mburuma's brother, suspecting that 

 it was a hoax, came to our encampment and told us the whole. 

 When we explained our objects, he told us that Mburuma, he had 

 no doubt, would receive us well. The reason why Selole acted 

 in this foolish manner we afterward found to be this : an Italian 

 named Simoens, and nicknamed Siriatomba (don't eat tobacco), 

 had married the daughter of a chief called Sekokole, living north 

 of Tete. He armed a party of fifty slaves with guns, and, as- 

 cending the river in canoes some distance beyond the island Meya 

 makaba, attacked several inhabited islands beyond, securing a 

 large number of prisoners, and much ivory. On his return, the 

 different chiefs, at the instigation of his father-in-law, who also did 

 not wish him to set up as a chief, united, attacked and dispersed 

 the party of Simoens, and killed him while trying to escape on 

 foot. Selole imagined that I was another Italian, or, as he express- 

 ed it," Siriatomba risen from the dead." In his message to Mbu- 

 ruma he even said that Mobala, and all the villages beyond, were 

 utterly destroyed by our fire-arms, but the sight of Mobala him- 



