320 CHANGE OF PATH. 



their shields at home by command of Sekeletu, who feared 

 that, if they carried these, they might be more disposed 

 to be overbearing in their demeanour to the tribes we 

 should meet. We had proceeded on the principles of peace 

 and conciliation, and the foregoing treatment shows in 

 What light our conduct was viewed ;, in fact, we were 

 taken for interlopers trying to cheat the revenue of the 

 tribe. They had/ been accustomed to get a slave or two 

 from every slave-trader who passed them, and now that 

 we disputed the right, they viewed the infringement on 

 what they considered lawfully due, with most virtuous 

 indignation. 



March 6th. — We were informed that the people on the 

 west of the Chiboque of Njambi were familiar with the 

 visits of slave-traders ; and it was the opinion of our 

 guides from Kangenke, that so many of my companions 

 would be demanded from me, in the same manner as the 

 people of Njambi had done, that I should reach the coast 

 without a single attendant ; I therefore resolved to alter 

 our course and strike away to the N.N.K., in the hope 

 that at some point farther north I might find an exit to 

 the Portuguese settlement of Cassange. We proceeded at 

 first due north, with the Kasabi villages on our right, 

 and the Kasau on our left. During the first twenty miles 

 we crossed many small, but now swollen streams, having 

 the usual boggy banks, and wherever the water had stood 

 for any length of time, it was discoloured with rust of 

 iron. We saw a " nakong " antelope one day, a rare 

 sight in this quarter ; and many new and pretty flowers 

 adorned the valleys. We could observe the difference in 

 the seasons in our northing in company with the sun. 

 Summer was now nearly over at Kuruman, and far 

 advanced at Linyanti, but here we were in the middle of 

 it ; fruits, which we had eaten, ripe on the Leeambye, 

 were here quite green ■ but we were coming into the 

 region where the inhabitants are favoured with two rainy 

 seasons and two crops, i.e., when the sun is going south, 

 and when he comes back on his way to the north, as was 

 the case at present. 



On the 8th, one of the men had left an ounce or two of 

 powder at our sleeping-place, and went back several miles 

 for it. My clothing being wet from crossing a stream, 

 I was compelled to wait for him ; had I been moving in 

 the sun I should have felt no harm, but the inaction led 



