FAREWELL TO SH1NTE. 
179 
the rain was too heavy for our departure, and the guides 
still required time for preparation. Shinte himself was 
busy getting some meal ready for my use in the journey. 
As it rained nearly all day, it was no sacrifice to submit to 
his advice and remain. Sambanza staggered to Manenko’s 
hut: she, however, who had never promised “to love, 
honor, and obey him,” had not been “nursing her wrath 
to keep it warm;” so she coolly bundled him into the hut, 
and put him to bed. 
As the last proof of friendship, Shinte came into my tent, 
though it could scarcely contain more than one person, 
looked at all the curiosities, the quicksilver, the looking- 
glass, books, hair-brushes, comb, watch, &c. &c., with the 
greatest interest; then, closing the tent, so that none of his 
own people might see the extravagance of which he was 
about to be guilty, he drew out from his clothing a string 
of beads and the end of a conical shell, which is consi- 
dered, in regions far from the sea, of as groat value as t"he 
Lord Mayor’s badge is in London. He hung it round my 
neck, and said, “ There, now you have a proof of my friend- 
ship.” 
My men informed me that these shells are so highly 
valued in this quarter, as evidences cf distinction, that for 
two of them a slave might be bought, and five would be 
considered a handsome price for an elephant’s tusk worth 
ten pounds. At our last interview old Shinto pointed out 
our principal guide, Intemeso, a man about fifty, who was, 
he said, ordered to remain by us till we should reach the 
sea; that 1 had now loll Sekeletu far bohind, and must 
henceforth look to Shinte alone for aid, and that it would 
always be most cheerfully rendered. This was only a 
polite way of expressing his wishes for my success. It was 
the good words only of the guides which were to aid me 
from the next, chief, Katoma, on to the sea; they were to 
turn back on reaching him ; but he gave a good supply of 
food for the journey before us, and, after mentioning as a 
reason for letting us go even now that no one could say 
