1871.] A DISHONEST BOAT-BUILDER. 121 



in this case they carried them by three relays. They dress 

 their hair like the Bashukulompo, plaited into upright 

 basket helmets : no quarrel occurred, and great kindness was 

 shown to the strangers. A river having very black water, 

 the Nyengere, flows into Lualaba from the west, and it 

 becomes itself very large : another river or water, Shamikwa, 

 falls into it from the south-west, and it becomes still larger : 

 this is probably the Lomame. A short-horned antelope is 

 common. 



3rd May. — Abed informs me that a canoe will come 

 in five days. Word was sent after me by the traders south 

 of us not to aid me, as I was sure to die where I was going : 

 the wish is father to the thought! Abed was- naturally 

 very anxious to get first into the Babisa ivory market, yet 

 he tried to secure a canoe for me before he went, but he was 

 too eager, and a Manyuema man took advantage of his 

 desire, and 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 on my account advanced 

 five goats, a thousand cowries, and many beads, and said that 

 he would tell me what he wished in return : this was debt, 

 but I was so anxious to get away I was content to take 

 the canoe on any terms. However, it turned out that 

 the matter on the part of the headman whom Abed trusted 

 was all deception : he had no canoe at all, but knew of 

 one belonging to another man, and wished to get Abed 

 and me to send men to see it — in fact, to go with their 

 guns, and he would manage to embroil them with the real 

 owner, so that some old feud should be settled to his satisfac- 

 tion. On finding that I declined to be led into his trap, he 

 took a female slave to the owner, and on his refusal to sell 

 the canoe for her, it came out that he had adopted a system 

 of fraud to Abed. He had victimized Abed, who was 

 naturally inclined to believe his false statements, and get 

 off to the ivory market. His people came from the Kuss 



