138 M0NAHENG MURDERED. Chap. V. 



conduct at once changed from enmity to kindness, and, as 

 the place was one well selected for defence, it was perhaps 

 quite as well for Mpende that he decided as he did. Three 

 of his counsellors now visited us, and we gave them a 

 handsome present for their chief, who came himself next 

 morning and made us a present of a goat, a basket of 

 boiled maize, and another of vetches. A few miles above 

 this the headman, Chilondo of Nyamasusa, apologized for 

 not formerly lending us canoes. " He was absent, and his 

 children were to blame for not telling him when the 

 Doctor passed ; he did not refuse the canoes." The sight 

 of our men, now armed with muskets, had a great effect. 

 Without any bullying, firearms command respect, and 

 lead men to be reasonable who might otherwise feel dis- 

 posed to be troublesome. Nothing, however, our fracas 

 with Mpende excepted, could be more peaceful than our 

 passage through this tract of country in 1856. We then 

 had nothing to excite the cupidity of the people, and the 

 men maintained themselves, either by selling elephant's 

 meat, or by exhibiting feats of foreign dancing. Most of 

 the people were very generous and friendly; but the 

 Banyai, nearer to Tette than this, stopped our march with 

 a threatening war-dance. One of our party, terrified at 

 this, ran away, as we thought, insane, and could not, after 

 a painful search of three days, be found. The Banyai, 

 evidently touched by our distress, allowed us to proceed. 

 Through a man we left on an island a little below 

 Mpende's, we subsequently learned that poor Monaheng 

 had fled thither, and had been murdered by the headman 

 for no reason except that he was defenceless. This head- 

 man had since become odious to his countrymen, and had 

 been put to death by them. 



On the 23rd of June we entered Pangola's principal 

 village, which is upwards of a mile from the river. The 

 ruins of a mud wall showed that a rude attempt had been 



