340 OUR ENCAMPMENT SURROUNDED. Chap. XVIII. 



explanation that this was the customary tribute to chiefs in the 

 part from which we had come, and that we always honoured men 

 in his position. He returned thanks, and promised to send food. 

 Next morning he sent an impudent message, with a very small 

 present of meal ; scorning the meat he had accepted, he de- 

 manded 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 further progress. We replied, 

 we should have thought ourselves fools if we had scorned his 

 small present, and demanded other food instead ; and even sup- 

 posing 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 message 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 everything. 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 

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

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

 all ready to die rather than give up one of our number to be a 

 slave ; that my men might as well give me as I give one of them, 



