A THRIVING BUSINESS. G27 



long grass and forest of their country, and were terrible fellows 

 among themselves, and when they become acquainted with fire- 

 arms will be terrible to the strangers who now murder them. 

 The Bakuss cultivate more than the southern Manyuema, espe- 

 cially pennisetum and dura, or holms sorghum; common coifee 

 is abundant in their district, and they use it highly scented with 

 vanilla, which must be fertilized by insects. This beverage is 

 usually handed round in cups after meals. Among their other 

 luxuries, pineapples were quite abundant. Their country was 

 much more open than the more southern districts, and was found 

 literally swarming with people. There, too, the market was the 

 great institution. In some things they might be an example to 

 their neighbors ; in their personal cleanliness, for instance, which 

 is made obligatory by a law requiring them to bathe regularly 

 twice every day ; and there is another custom by which all illicit 

 intercourse is severely punished. The offender in this must see 

 his whole family sold into slavery. The women, who form there, 

 as everywhere, an indispensable element of social life, are dis- 

 tinguished by rather small compressed heads, but their pleasant 

 countenances and their bright wide-awake eyes are evidences 

 enough of their intelligence. 



But, more than all to the Arabs and their avaricious hordes, 

 the land was full of people and ivory, and let the people be 

 friendly or unfriendly, good or bad, beautiful or ugly, it was all 

 one to them: there was a chance for slaves and ivory ; slaves and 

 ivory meant a thriving business. As for Dr. Livingstone, he 

 saw no hope of getting on ; he was clearly considered in the way 

 by the traders, and his ten Banian men were certainly not to be 

 trusted. Abed overheard them one day plotting for his destruc- 

 tion. The horrible plan which they arranged was, if compelled 

 to go on, to watch their chance, and the first difficulty which 

 arose with the Manyuema they would fire off their guns and run 

 away, and as the doctor was weak and could not run as fast as 

 they he would be left to perish. The tones in which this fiendish 

 plot came to the ears of Abed convinced him that for Dr. Living- 

 stone to go with them would be certain death at the hands of 

 the cannibals. Notwithstanding the fact that Abed in common 

 with Hassani and others had been by their policy a great hin- 

 drance to him, Dr. Livingstone had no doubt that in a matter 



