Chap. XVI. A MERMAN. 289 



reverence at oivr religious services. This will appear important, 

 if the reader remembers the almost total want of prayer and 

 reverence we encountered in the south. 



Our friends informed us that Shinte would be highly honoured 

 by the presence of three white men in his town at once. Two 

 others had sent forward notice of their approach from another 

 quarter (the west) ; could it be Barth or Krapf ? How pleasant 

 to meet with Europeans in such an out-of-the-way region ! The 

 rush of thoughts made me almost forget my fever. Are they of 

 the same colour as I am ? — " Yes ; exactly so." — And have the 

 same hair ? — " Is that hair ? we thought it was a wig ; we never 

 saw the like before ; this white man must be of the sort that 

 lives in the sea." Henceforth my men took this hint, and 

 always sounded my praises as a true specimen of the variety 

 of white men who live in the sea. " Only look at his hair — it 

 is made quite straight by the sea- water !" 



I explained to them again and again that, when it was said we 

 came out of the sea, it did not mean that we came from beneath 

 the water ; but the fiction has been widely spread in the interior 

 by the Mambari, that the real white men live in the sea, and the 

 myth was too good not to be taken advantage of by my com- 

 panions ; so, notwithstanding my injunctions, I believe that, when 

 I was out of hearing, my men always represented themselves as 

 led by a genuine merman : " Just see his hair ! " If I returned 

 from walking to a little distance, they would remark of some to 

 whom they had been holding forth, " These people want to see 

 your hair." 



As the strangers had woolly hair like themselves, I had to 

 give up the idea of meeting anything more European, than two 

 half-caste Portuguese, engaged in trading for slaves, ivory, and 

 bees'-wax. 



16t?i. — After a short march we came to a most lovely 

 valley about a mile and a half wide, and stretching away east- 

 wards up to a low prolongation of MonaMdzi. A small stream 

 meanders down the centre of this pleasant green glen ; and on a 

 little rill, which flows into it from the western side, stands the 

 town of Kabompo ; or, as he likes best to be called, Shinte. 

 (Lat. 12° 37' 35" S., long. 22° 47' E.) When Manenko thought 

 the sun was high enough for us to make a lucky entrance, we 



u 



