1871.] FORTUNATE ESCAPE. 120 



could be dragged past the narrows, as anyone else would 

 have done. No better luck could be expected after all their 

 fraud and duplicity in getting the canoes ; no harm lay in 

 obtaining them, but why try to prevent me getting one ? 



21th June. — In answer to my prayers for preservation, 

 I was prevented going down to the narrows, formed by a 

 dyke of mountains cutting across country, and jutting a 

 little ajar, which makes the water in an enormous mass 

 wheel round behind it helplessly, and if the canoes reach 

 the rock against which the water dashes, they are almost 

 certainly overturned. As this same dyke probably cuts 

 across country to Lomame, my plan of going to the con- 

 fluence and then up won't do, for I should have to go up 

 rapids there. Again, I was prevented from going down 

 Luamo, and on the north of its confluence another cataract 

 mars navigation in the Lualaba, and my safety is thereby 

 secured. We don't always know the dangers that we are 

 guided past. 



28th June. — The river has fallen two feet : dark brown 

 water, and still much wreck floating down. 



Eight villages are in flames, set fire to by a slave of 

 Syde bin Habib, called Manilla, who thus shows his blood 

 friends of the Bagenya how well he can fight against the 

 Mohombo, whose country the Bagenya want ! The stragglers 

 of this camp are over on the other side helping Manilla, 

 and catching fugitives and goats. The Bagenya are fisher- 

 men by taste and profession, and sell the produce of their 

 nets and weirs to those who cultivate the soil, at the 

 different markets. Manilla's foray is for an alleged debt 

 of three slaves, and ten villages are burned. 



SOth June. — Hassani pretended that he was not aware 

 of Manilla's foray, and when I denounced it to Manilla 

 himself, he showed that he was a slave, by cringing and 

 saying nothing except something about the debt of three 

 slaves. 



VOL. II. K 



