634 
MISTAKEN FOE A SLAVE TRADER. 
gave them just reason to capture women and children, 
goats, sheep, fowl* and grain. The masters did not quite 
approve of this, but the deeds had been done, and then 
masters and men joined in one harmonious chorus — “The 
Manyema are bad, had, bad, awfully bad, and cannibals.” 
In going west of Bamharre, in order to embark on the 
Lualaba, I went down the Luamo, a river of from one hun- 
dred to two hundred yards broad, which rises in the moun- 
tains opposite Ujiji and flows across the great bend of the 
Lualaba. When near its confluence I found myself among 
people who had lately been maltreated by the slaves, and 
they naturally looked upon me as of the same tribe as 
their persecutors. Africans are not generally unreasonable, 
though smarting under wrongs, if you can fairly make 
them understand your claim to innocence, and do not ap- 
pear as having your “ back up.” The women here were 
paticularly outspoken in asserting our identity' with the 
cruel strangers. On calling to one vociferous lady, who 
gave me the head trader's name, to look at my color and 
■ee if it were the same as his, she replied with a bitter little 
laugh, “ Then you must be his father.” The worst the men 
did was to turn out in force, armed with their large spears 
and wooden shields, and show us out of their districts. 
Glad that no collision took place, we returned to Bamharre, 
and then, with our friend Muhained, struck away due north; 
he to buy ivory, and I to reach another part of Lualaba 
arid buy a canoe. 
The country is extremely beautiful, but difficult to travel 
over. The mountains of light gray granite stand like is- 
lands in new red sandstone, and mountain and valley aro 
all clad in a mantle of different shades of green. The ve- 
getation is indescribably rank. Through the grass — if grass 
it can be called, which is over half an inch in diameter in 
the stalk and from ten to twelve feet high — nothing but 
elephants can walk. The leaves of this megatherium grass 
are armed with minute spikes ; which, as we worm our way 
along elephant walks, rub disagreeably on the side of tbs 
