"a trick of the trade." 625 



living farther clown the river. Katomba's people had been 

 there and were returning with immense quantities. They re- 

 ported that the whole country was full of it ; the door-posts 

 and house pillars were made of it. They had found the people 

 peaceable, and had gone in and come away without a single dis- 

 turbance. They had traded copper rings for the ivory, two 

 rings for a tusk, which they had found the most acceptable 

 currency there as among the Manyuema. This country was 

 bordering on the several great rivers which flowed into the 

 Lualaba from the west. Hearing these wonderful reports only 

 whetted the eagerness of Hassani and Abed. They picked up 

 all the canoes to be had for themselves; partly by becoming 

 blood-relations with the natives, by the blood-letting ceremony ; 

 partly by helping them to kill each other, partly by intimidat- 

 ing them, and partly by turning their prejudice against the 

 white man, who was represented as wanting no ivory or slaves, 

 but only canoes that he might kill Manyuema. Livingstone 

 was obliged to stand quietly and see canoe after canoe go off 

 down the noble river which he was so anxious to explore. 

 Once he was confident that his desire was realized; he felt as if 

 he had the precious canoe. Abed seemed to become possessed 

 of a more generous spirit, and although he was anxious to be 

 off to the ivory land would not go until he thought he had 

 sealed a bargain for a canoe for the doctor. But he was a little 

 too eager, and a Manyuema man, who it turned out had an old 

 grudge against another head man which he wanted to avenge, 

 came over the river and said that he had one hollowed out, and 

 he wanted goats and beads to hire people to drag it down to 

 the water. Abed advanced five goats, a thousand cowries, and 

 many beads. But it turned out that the man had no canoe, but 

 was only seeking to draw the traders into a difficulty with his 

 enemy and so get his revenge, for he knew that a difficulty oc- 

 curring, the man's village would be burned and many of his 

 people killed by the Arabs. His plan for bringing about this 

 was to have Abed and the doctor send men to see the canoe, 

 who would of course carry their guns. The canoe being the 

 property of the other, while they would know that Abed had 

 paid for it, he was shrewd enough to see that there would be 

 very probably a fight before the parties separated, and however 



