MANENKO'S WHIMS. 
167 
of adoration instead. They io not love thorn. They feai 
them, and betako themselves to their idols only whon in 
perplexity and dangor. 
While dolayed, by Mancnko’s management, among the 
Balonda villages, a little to tho south of the town of 
Shinte, we were well supplied by the villagers with sweet 
potatoes and green maizo: Sambanza wont to his mother’s 
village for supplies of other food. I was laboring under 
fever, and did not find it veiy difficult to oxorciso patience 
with her whims; but, it being Saturday, I thought we 
might as woll go to tho town for Sunday, (15th.) “No: 
her messongor must return from her uncle first.” Being 
suro that the answer of tho undo would bo favorablo, 1 
thought wo might go on at once, and not lose two days in 
tho Bamo spot. “No : it is our custom;” and ovory thing 
elso I could urgo was answered in the genuine pertinacious 
lady style. She ground some meal for mo with her own 
hands, and w'hen sho brought it told mo sho had actually 
gone to a village and begged corn for the purposo. She 
said this with an air as if tho inforoneo must bo drawn by 
oven a stupid white man, “I know how to manage, don’t 
I It was refreshing to got food which could be eaten 
without producing tho unpleasantness described by the 
Bov. John Nowton, of St. Mary’s, Woolnoth, London, 
whon obliged to eat tho same roots while a slavo in the 
West Indies. Tho day, (January 14th,) for a wonder, was 
fair, and tho sun shone, so as to allow us to dry our cloth- 
ing and other goods, many of which wero mouldy and 
rotten from the long-continued damp. Tho guns rusted, 
in spite of being oiled ovory evening. 
On Sunday afternoon, messengers arrived from Shinto, 
expressing his approbation of tho objects wo had in viow 
in our journey through tho country, and that he was glad 
of tho prospect of a ivay being opened by which white 
men might visit and allow him to purchaso ornaments at 
pleasure. Mancnko now threatened in sport to go on, and 
I soon afterward perceived that what now scorned to me 
