A FAITHLESS GUIDE. 427 



direction, by preserving the mental quietude of a kind of 

 fatalism. 



We were forced to prepay our guide and his father too, 

 and he went but one day, although he promised to go with 

 us to Katema. He was not in the least ashamed at break- 

 ing his engagements, and probably no disgrace will be 

 attached to the deed by Muanzanza. Among the Bak- 

 wains he would have been punished. My men would have 

 stripped him of the wages which he wore on his person, 

 but thought that, as we had always acted on the mildest 

 principles, they would let him move off with his unearned 

 gains. 



They frequently lamented the want of knowledge in 

 these people, saying in. their own tongue, " Ah ! they 

 don't know that we are men as well as they, and that we 

 are only bearing with their insolence with patience because 

 we are men." Then would follow a hearty curse, showing 

 that the patience was nearly expended ; but they seldom 

 quarrelled in the language of the Balonda. The only one 

 who ever lost his temper, was the man who struck a 

 head-man of one of the villages on the mouth, and he was 

 the most abject individual in our company. 



The reason why we needed a gjuide at all, was, to. secure 

 the convenience of a path, which, though generally no 

 better than a sheep-walk, is much easier than going 

 straight in one direction, through tangled forests and 

 tropical vegetation. We knew the general direction we 

 ought to follow, and also if any deviation occurred from 

 our proper route ; but to avoid impassable forests and 

 untreadable bogs, and to get to the proper fords of the 

 rivers, we always tried to procure a guide, and he always 

 followed the common path from one village to another 

 when that lay in the direction we were going. 



After leaving Cabango on the 21st, we crossed several 

 little streams running into the Chihombo on our left, and 

 in one of them I saw tree ferns (Cyath-ea dvegei) for the first 

 time in Africa. The trunk was about four feet high and 

 ten inches in diameter. We saw also grass trees of two 

 varieties, which in damp localities had attained a height 

 of forty feet. On crossmg the Chihombo, which we did 

 about twelve miles above Cabango, we found it waist- 

 deep and rapid. We were delighted to see the evidences 

 of buffalo and hippopotami on its banks. As soon as we 

 got away from the track of the slave-traders, the more 



