128 DISCOVERIES OF THE PORTUGUESE. 
to recross the Zaire, and proceed to the capital of 
Congo. He proceeded to Bomangoi, where he 
hired a boat to convey him up the stream. He 
found the voyage extremely painful from the ex- 
cessive heat, and from its being the season of the 
rains, (March). During the night, he was ob- 
liged to sleep on the shore upon the wet ground, 
where he was tormented by a species of gnats, 
which he compares to horse-leeches, as they never 
quitted their hold till they burst. At length he 
arrived at Boma, a large and populous island in the 
Congo. He was received, not very courteously, by 
the Mani, who admitted him indeed into his pre- 
sence, but on condition that no contact should take 
place, lest it should destroy the virtue of the nu- 
merous enchanted brass and iron rings with which 
he was covered. The prince was also displeased 
with his refusal to baptize a female slave, with whom 
he lived on a very intimate footing. In the even- 
ing, Merolla was seized with violent pains in the 
bowels, which convinced him that he had been poi- 
soned ; though there does not appear, in the symp- 
toms and circumstances, very much to favour such 
a supposition. In a few days he was entirely re- 
covered, and sent to the Mani to request a boat. 
That officer replied, that if Merolla stood in need 
of a boat, he himself was in equal need of a cloak. 
In this remark there was nothing obscure to Me- 
rolla, who was aware that the prince knew him to 
4 
