HORRIBLE CANNIBALISM. 607 



He was now utterly helpless ; the sores on his feet had be- 

 come irritable, eating ulcers ; " if the foot was put on the 

 ground there was immediately a discharge of bloody ichor, and 

 the same discharge occurred every night, attended with great 

 pain. This dreadful affliction is common in all the slave- 

 camps, and the cries of the sufferer are a nightly sound." En- 

 tirely deprived of medicine he was dependent on such remedies 

 as could be furnished by Mohamad, who continued a steadfast 

 friend. Eighty days he was confined to his hut not able to take 

 a step, and months after his sores began healing he was still 

 obliged to remain in Bambarre. But he was not idle : the time 

 was improved in picking up knowledge of the customs of the 

 people and the face of the country, which, while not so satis- 

 factory to him, was some compensation for the long confinement. 



There could be no longer any doubt about the variety of the 

 stories, concerning the cannibal propensities of the people of 

 Manyuema; instance after instance came to his ears, and over 

 and over for himself he saw unmistakable evidences of their 

 barbarity. The people of other districts seemed only to eat 

 those men taken in battle, and the idea of revenge seemed to be 

 prominent in their minds in doing so, but in Bambarre it was 

 clearly the depravity of taste: the people were eager for human 

 flesh, and Mohamad was obliged to threaten them with whole- 

 sale slaughter to prevent their digging up the dead bodies of 

 his men who died. They themselves have no graves: their dead 

 are eaten. The skull only of the great chief Moenekuss was pre- 

 served; his body was eaten and even the flesh from the skull, 

 which had been carefully scraped. These horrid creatures, 

 horrid in this single disgusting appetite, would assemble in 

 crowds about the village where an execution was to take place, 

 like ravenous wolves. He had found rumors all through the 

 south of a dreadful tribe of man-eaters in the northwest, and 

 had counted them fables ; but here he was in the midst of that 

 very tribe, talking with them, receiving kindnesses at their 

 hands, really admiring them on some accounts, struck with 

 their beauty and symmetry, and often touched with little exhi- 

 bitions of tenderness displayed by them. He could hardly be- 

 lieve his own senses. It seemed so unreasonable that people 

 with so many attractive traits should be the most barbarous 



