232 
OPPORTUNE AID. 
He thought, as others did, that my men wore slaves. He 
was a young man, with woolly hair elaborately dressed : 
that behind was made up into a cone, about eight inches 
in diameter at tho 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 tho door in front, X tried in vain 
to lie 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 tho bank in spite of these people, a young half-caste 
Portuguese sergeant of militia, Cypriano di Abreu, made 
his appearance and gave tho same advice. Ho had come 
across tho Quango in search of bocs’-wax. When we 
moved oft from tho chief who had been plaguing us, his 
people opened a fire from our shods, and continued to blaze 
away somo time in tho direction wo were going; but none 
of the bullets reachod us. It is probable that they ex- 
pected a demonstration of tho abundance of ammunition 
they possessed would make us run ; but, when we con- 
tinued to move quietly to tho ford, they proceeded no 
farther than our sleeping-place. Cypriano assisted us in 
making a more satisfactory arrangement with tho ferry* 
man than parting with my blanket; and as soon as W® 
reached tho opposite bank wo were in the territory of the 
Bangala, who aro subjects of the Portuguese, and often 
spoken ol as the Cassangos or Cassantso ; and happily®^ 
our difficulties with the border-tribes wero at an end. 
Passing with light hearts through the high grass by 9 
narrow footpath about three miles west of the river, we can 
to several neat square houses, with many cleanly-lo° ,£ " ,g 
half-caste Portuguese standing in front of them to sal ut * 
us They aro all enrolled in the militia, and our fr ien 
■Cypriano is the commander of a division established her® 
