356 EETEEAT OF SLAVE-HUNTEES. Chap. XVIII. 



where previously they durst not venture, and, on pretence 

 of being " our children," setting one tribe against another, 

 to furnish themselves with slaves, would so inevitably thwart 

 all the efforts, for which we had the sanction of the Portuguese 

 Government, that we resolved to run all risks, and put a 

 stop, if possible, to the slave-trade, which had now followed 

 on the footsteps of our discoveries. A few minutes after 

 Mbame had spoken to us, the slave party, a long line of 

 manacled men, women, 'and children, came wending their 

 way round the hill and into the valley, on the side of which 

 the village stood. The black drivers, armed with muskets, 

 and bedecked with various articles of finery, marched jauntily 

 in the front, middle, and rear of the line ; some of them 

 blowing exultant notes out of long tin horns. They 

 seemed to feel that they were doing a very noble thing, 

 and might proudly march with an air of triumph. But 

 the instant the fellows caught a glimpse of the Eng- 

 lish, they darted off like mad into the forest ; so fast, 

 indeed, that we caught but a glimpse of their red caps 

 and the soles of their feet. The chief of the party alone 

 remained ; and he, from being in front, had his hand tightly 

 grasped by a Makololo ! He proved to be a well-known 

 slave of the late Commandant at Tette, and for some 

 time our own attendant while there. On asking hiin how he 

 obtained these captives, he replied, he had bought them ; but 

 on our inquiring of the people themselves all, save four, said 

 they had been captured in war. While this inquiry was going 

 on, he bolted too. The captives knelt down, and, in their way 

 of expressing thanks, clapped their hands with great energy. 

 They were thus left entirely on our hands, and knives were 

 soon busy at work cutting the women and children loose. 

 It was more difficult to cut the men adrift, as each had his 

 neck in the fork of a stout stick, six or seven feet long, and 



