WANT OF FOOD. 9 



and gradually dies of emaciation : a horse belonging to 

 Gordon Cumming died of a bite five or six months after 

 it was bitten. 



On account of this insect, I resolved to go to the 

 north, and then westwards to the Portuguese settlement 

 of Loanda. Along the course of the river which we 

 passed, game was so abundant that there was no diffi- 

 culty in supplying the wants of my whole party: an- 

 telopes were so tame that they might be shot from the 

 canoe. But beyond 14 degrees of south latitude the 

 natives had guns, and had themselves destroyed the game, 

 so that I and my party had to live on charity. The 

 people, however, in that central region were friendly and 

 hospitable : but they had nothing but vegetable produc- 

 tions : the most abundant was the cassava, which, how- 

 ever nice when made into tapioca pudding, resembles in 

 its more primitive condition nothing so much as a mess 

 of laundress" starch 1 . There was a desire in the various 

 villages through which we passed to have intercourse 

 with us, and kindness and hospitality were shewn us; 

 but when we got near the Portuguese settlement of 

 Angola the case was changed, and payment was de- 

 manded for every thing 2 . But I had nothing to pay with. 

 Now the people had been in the habit of trading with the 



1 For an account of this, see Appendix, p. 79. 



2 This was often a sort of black-mail levied for a right of way, and 

 was generally demanded in the shape of " a man, a tusk, an ox, or a 

 2run." 



