34-0 THE QUANGO. 



The Quango is said by the natives to contain many 

 venomous water-snakes, which congregate near the 

 carcase of any hippopotamus that may be killed in it. 

 If this is true, it may account for all the villages we saw, 

 being situated far from its banks. We were advised not 

 to sleep near it ; but, as we were anxious to cross to the 

 western side, we tried to induce some of the Bashinje to 

 lend us canoes for the purpose. This brought out the 

 chief of these parts, who informed us that all the canoe- 

 men were his children, and nothing could be done without 

 his authority. He then made the usual demand for a 

 man, an ox, or a gun, adding that otherwise, we must 

 return to the country from which we had come. As I 

 did not believe that this man had any power over the 

 canoes of the other side, and suspected that if I gave him 

 my blanket — the only thing I now had in reserve — he 

 might leave us in the lurch after all, I tried to persuade 

 my men to go at once to the bank, about two miles off, 

 and obtain possession of the canoes before we gave up the 

 blanket ; but they thought that this chief might attack 

 us in the act of crossing, should we do so. The chief 

 came himself to our encampment and made his demand 

 again. My men stripped on the last of their copper rings 

 and gave them : but he was still intent on a man. He 

 thought, as others did, that my men were slaves. He was 

 a young man, with his woolly hair elaborately dressed : 

 that behind was made up into a cone, about eight inches 

 in diameter at the base, carefully swathed round with red 

 and black thread. As I resisted the proposal to deliver 

 up my blanket until they had placed us on the western 

 bank, this chief continued to worry us with his demands 

 till I was tired. My little tent was now in tatters, and 

 having a wider hole behind than the door in front, I tried 

 in vain to he down out of sight of our persecutors. We 

 were on a reedy flat, and could not follow our usual plan 

 of a small stockade, in which we had time to think over 

 and concoct our plans. As I was trying to persuade my 

 men to move on to the bank in spite of these people, a 

 young half-caste Portuguese sergeant of militia, Cypriano 

 di Abreu, made his appearance, and gave the same advice. 

 He had come across the Quango in search of bees' -wax. 

 When we moved off from the chief who had been plaguing 

 us, his people opened a fire from our sheds, and continued 

 to blaze away some time in the direction we were going, 



