CAMERON'S ADDRESS TO TEE BRITISH ASSOCIA TION. 695 



and shields. The natives of Manyema are a remarkably prolific race, but 

 the country is not so populous as it might be, because nearly every village is 

 ruled by an independent chieftain, and constant wars are going on for the 

 purpose of obtaining slaves, or killing those of the opposing party, in order to 

 eat them, all the Manyema being cannibals. 



Journeying northwards, but still in Manyema, a district was reached 

 where iron was very plenty, and where large forges were at work. Many of 

 the spears and knives which they turned out looked as if finished off by a file, 

 or polished by some means, although all done by hand forging and patient 

 labour. Just before passing the Bambarre mountains, Captain Cameron saw 

 palms for the first time in great numbers. They were planted in rows in the 

 centre of a street, and there were plantations adjoining the villages. The 

 oil produced is much exported to Tanganyika and there exchanged for other 

 articles. The Lualaba River was next reached, which is about one thousand 

 eight hundred yards in breadth. The southern shore is occupied by a tribe 

 called the Wagenga, who do the whole carrying business of the river, being 

 the only canoe proprietors who take for pay the products of the country to the 

 different markets. The young women make immense quantities of pottery 

 in the mud and back water, which they exchange for fish. 



After referring to a country between Nyangwi and Loami, where a palm 

 oil grows in great profusion, Captain Cameron passed through Kilemba and 

 reached Lake Kigongo. This lake is covered with floating vegetation, on 

 which the people build their houses, cut a space round about them, and so 

 transform their habitations into floating islands, so that when desirable they 

 change the locality from one place to another. The principal trades were in 

 ivory and slaves, but in many places there were coffee, mineral products, 

 copper mines, coal, etc. Coming to the coast he passed through one of the 

 most magnificent countries in the world to look at, possessing a climate in 

 which any European might live. The Portuguese had been settled in this 

 neighbourhood for a period of thirty years. He saw a beautiful grove of 

 orange trees round one of their houses, and roses thirty feet high, while 

 the proprietor assured him that European plants throve well. The whole 

 of the country was one vast slave field, and the various products he had re- 

 ferred to were just waiting for one to come and take them. In conclud- 

 ing, Captain Cameron said that the way to stop the slave trade was to open 

 up the Congo and Zambesi. Twenty-five miles of civilisation would join 

 these two rivers, and they could then get right across the continent by water 

 navigation. By means of other rivers we would be able to get up and tap 

 the country where the Egyptian traders got the most of their ivory. In the 

 country there was a vast mineral wealth, and an ordinary population, that, 

 with education, might be rendered very industrious, instead of carrying on 

 a continual warfare against each other for the purpose of obtaining slaves. 



