STAGNANT POOLS AND GIANT TREES. 
593 
made up to a small Arab party which rendered me most 
important aid in my illness in Marungu, and we met a lot 
of TJjijians coming with 18,000 pounds’ weight of ivory. 
The ivory was bought in this new field for a mere trifle in 
beads. After resting awhile in the town of the principal 
Manyuema chief I went west down a river named Luamo, 
from 100 to 150 yards broad, and always deep enough to 
require canoes ; but the Ujiji traders had been obliged to 
employ their slaves in collecting their ivory, and slaves 
with guns in their hands arc usually limbs of the evil one. 
The Manyuema were always in the wrong, wanted to eat 
them, and always gave the slaves reasons to capture peo- 
ple, goats, and fowls, and carry off as much grain as they 
needed. Their head men did not approve of this; they 
wanted the ivory only, but the masters and men joined in 
one chorus: The Manyuema arc bad, bad, bad, very bad. 
“ When near the confluence of Luamo and Lualaba I 
was coming among people who had suffered very severely 
at the hands of the slaves, and they would not believe 
that my small party did not belong to the bloodthirsty 
strangers. The women were particularly outspoken, but 
the worst that was done was to turn out in force and show 
us . out of the district. Glad that no collision took place 
we returned to the principal town, and with the friendly 
party which we overtook struck away north, they to buy 
ivory and I to get a canoe on the Lualaba, but the rains 
began, and travelling, as I found, in Marungu in tho wet 
season was killing work. The vegetation is indescribably 
rank ; through the grass — if grass it can be called, which is 
more than half an inch thick in the stalk and twelve feet 
high — nothing but elephants can walk. Then largo belts ol 
primeval forest stand between the districts, and into them 
the sun, though vertical, cannot penetrate. The rain-water 
stands in stagnant pools, and the dead leaves decay in the 
damp soil and make the water of tho numerous rills and 
rivulets of the color of a strong infusion of tea. One 
feels himself the veriest pigmy before the giant trees. 
50* 
