1871.] MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 123 



insects ; they hand round cups of it after meals. Pine- 

 apples too are abundant. They bathe regularly twice a 

 day : their houses are of two storeys. The women have 

 rather compressed heads, but very pleasant countenances; 

 and ancient Egyptian, round, wide-awake eyes. Their 

 numbers are prodigious ; the country literally swarms with 

 people, and a chief's town extends upwards of a mile. But 

 little of the primeval forest remains. Many large pools of 

 standing water have to be crossed, but markets are held 

 every eight or ten miles from each other, and to these the 

 people come from far, for the market is as great an insti- 

 tution as shopping is with the civilized. Illicit intercourse 

 is punished by the whole of the offender's family being 

 enslaved. 



The Bakuss smelt copper from the ore and sell it very 

 cheaply to the traders for beads. The project of going in 

 canoes now appeared to the half-castes so plausible, that 

 they all tried to get the Bagenya on the west bank to 

 lend them, and all went over to mix blood and make 

 friends with the owners, then all slandered me as not to be 

 trusted, as they their blood-relations were ; and my slaves 

 mutinied and would go no further. They mutinied three 

 times here, and Hassani harboured them till I told him 

 that, if an English officer harboured an Arab slave he 

 would be compelled by the Consul to refund the price, 

 and I certainly would not let him escape ; this frightened 

 him ; but I was at the mercy of slaves who had no honour, 

 and no interest in going into danger. 



16th May. — Abed gave me a frasilah of Matunda beads, 

 and I returned fourteen fathoms of fine American sheet- 

 ing, but it was an obligation to get beads from one whose 

 wealth depended on exchanging beads for ivory. 



\Qih Mmj. — At least 3000 people at market to-day, and 

 my going among them has taken away the fear engendered 

 by the slanders of slaves and traders, for all are pleased to 



