DOWN THE CONGO TO THE ATLANTIC. 
457 
to fight. To-day we sent a canoe, with a woman and 
-a boy np the river, with plenty of provisions in it. If 
you had been bad people, you would have taken that 
canoe. We were behind the bushes of that island 
watching you ; but you said 4 Sen-nen-neh ’ to them, 
and passed into the channel between the island and 
our villages. Had you seized that canoe, our drums 
would have sounded for war, and you would have had 
to fight us, as you fought the Amu-Nyam. We have 
left our spears on one of those islands. See, we have 
nothing.” 
It was true, as I had already seen, to my wonder and 
admiration. Here, then, I had opportunities for noting 
what thin barriers separated ferocity from amiability. 
Only a couple of leagues above lived the cannibals of 
Amu-Nyam, who had advanced towards us with evil 
and nauseous intentions ; but next to them was a tribe 
which detested the unnatural custom of eatino- their own 
\ o 
species, with whom we had readily formed a pact of 
peace and goodwill ! 
They said their country was called Kankore, the chief 
of which was Sangarika, and that the village opposite 
to us was Maringa ; and that three miles below was 
Simba-Simba ; that their country was small, and only 
reached to the end of the islands ; that after we had 
passed the islands we should come to the territory of 
the Mwana Ntaba, with whom we should have to fight ; 
that the Mwana Ntaba people occupied the country as 
far as the falls ; that below the falls were several islands 
inhabited by the Baswa, who were friends of the Mwana 
Ntaba. It would be impossible, they said, to go over 
the falls, as the river swept against a hill, and rolled 
over it, and tumbled down, down, down, with whirl and 
uproar, and we should inevitably get lost. It would be 
far better, they said, for us to return. 
The strange disposition to rechristen the great river 
with the name of its last great affluent was here again 
exemplified, for the Kankore tribe called the river at 
the falls the Rumami, or Lumami, and it became known 
no more as the Lowwa. 
