A CHIEF OUTWITTED. 173 



tended pet lap-dogs with as much care as their civilized sisters, with a better 

 excuse for their peculiar taste in pets, as these were fattened for eating. Flesh 

 meat was so scarce with them that they were always pleased to give something 

 in return for the smallest piece of ox flesh. Rats, mice, lizards, and birds, espe- 

 cially the latter, were so diligently hunted and trapped for food, that they were 

 seldom seen. Parasitic plants were so plentiful, that in many places a man 

 had to precede the party in the forests armed with a hatchet to cut a passage. 

 The luggage on the backs of the oxen was frequently entangled by them and 

 thrown to the ground, — the same fate frequently overtaking the leader of the 

 party himself. Provisions were exceedingly cheap, — a fowl and 20 lbs. of 

 manioc meal costing a yard of calico, worth threepence. From the Quango 

 valley the party had been accompanied by Paseval and Favia, two half-caste 

 slave traders. It was instructive to notice that they could not carry on their 

 peculiar traffic without paying heavy black-mail in the shape of presents to 

 every petty chief whose village they visited ; nor could they trust their native 

 bearers, who seemed to consider it the right thing to plunder them on all 

 occasions. They were compelled to wink at these irregularities, as the safety 

 of their merchandise was entirely in their hands. 



Kawawa, a Balonda chief, being baulked in his endeavours to extract 

 black-mail from the party, sent forward four of his men to the ferry across 

 the Kasai, with instructions to the ferrymen that they should not be carried 

 across the stream, which was about a hundred yards broad and very deep, 

 unless they got a man, an ox, a gun, and a robe. At night, Pitsane, who had 

 seen where the canoes were hidden among the reeds on the opposite side 

 of the stream, secured a canoe, in which they all passed safely across, to 

 the chagrin of the ferrymen and Kawawa's messengers, who could hardly 

 guess how they managed to cross, as the canoes were all safe on their side of 

 the stream, — Pitsane had replaced the canoe after it had done its work, and 

 swam across to join his comrades, some beads being left in it as payment 

 for a small quantity of meal got from the ferryman on the previous day. 

 In their mortification at being so completely worsted Kawawa's people 

 shouted across to them, " Ah, you are bad!" to which the Makololo returned 

 for answer, " Ah, ye are good I and we thank you for the loan of your 



canoe." 



The country before them might now be considered as friendly territory 

 in which the simple inhabitants could be trusted to assist them in their onward 

 progress, and whose generous kindness would render less serious the exhausted 

 condition of their stores of baggage and ornaments, which had disappeared 

 through the exactions of the unfriendly chiefs and tribes whose territory they 

 had passed through since crossing the Quango, and the payment for provisions 

 during the long delays caused by the ill health of the party. The goods and 

 ornaments the Makololo had received in presents, or had purchased out of 



