626 IVORY HUNTING. 



it turned oat he would have his revenge. This sort of thing 

 was one of the gravest difficulties which was to be contended 

 with in Manyuema. Abed was gone when this trick was found 

 out, and Livingstone declined to be led into the trap. 



While the doctor was yet waiting, some of Abed's people 

 returned laden with tusks which they had purchased. The 

 traders, although they were unwilling to confess it, were coming 

 to see that the counsel of Livingstone was wiser than they had 

 thought. They had sacrificed all the prospects which were pre- 

 sented by the Manyuema country by their desperate policy ; they 

 had closed district after district against themselves, and they 

 had be^un to see that even African savages could be influenced 

 more easily by justice and humanity than by plunder and murder. 

 How blessed a thing for Africa it would have been if the lesson 

 had been learned more thoroughly and generally ! How blessed 

 a thing, if they had been good enough to sacrifice their passions 

 to their interest ! The returning parties had much to say about 

 a country called Kuss, which lay at the confluence of the 

 Lomame which joins the Lualaba, probably a hundred miles 

 below Nyangwe. The Bakuss are Manyuema, but were distin- 

 guished by some peculiarities from their more southern country- 

 men. It was reported that the Bakuss were civil to strangers, 

 but that they had refused a passage into the country. In order 

 to impress them with their power, the effect of a musket shot on 

 a goat was shown them. They looked on with amazement, 

 thought it supernatural, looked up at the clouds, and offered to 

 bring ivory to buy the charm that could draw lightning down. 

 When it was afterwards attempted to force a path, they darted 

 aside on seeing the Wanyamwezi's followers putting the arrows 

 into the bowstrings, but stood in mute amazement looking at 

 the guns, which mowed them down in large numbers. They 

 thought that muskets were the insignia of chieftainship. Their 

 chiefs all go with a long straight staff of rattan, having a quantity 

 of black medicine smeared on each end, and no weapons in 

 their hands. They imagined that the guns were carried as 

 insignia of the same kind ; some, jeering, called them big 

 tobacco-pipes, and seemed to have no fear on seeing a gun 

 levelled at them. 



They used large and very long spears very expertly in the 



