516 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
canoes would be employed skirmishing in the deeper 
portions, and the crews, with the handle of their hand- 
nets laid under their legs, paddling up and down with 
long silent strokes, would thus secure large hauls. 
By a daring rush down river we passed the rapids 
of Ungufu-inchi, and, proceeding six miles along low 
sandy shores, and alluvial folds between low hills, we 
came to the rapids between Kilemba and Rubata, and 
were halted abreast of the Rubata Cauldron, near the 
village of Ivibonda, which occupies the summit of a 
bluff opposite Elwala river on the left bank. 
The natives here are given up to the cultivation of 
ground-nuts and cassava, and minnow catching. Food 
was therefore so scarce, and so unsuitable for the pre- 
servation of working men’s strength, that our sick-list 
was alarmingly increased. The Basundi are a most 
wretched, suspicious, and degraded race, quarrelsome, 
and intensely disposed to be affronted. I was unable 
to purchase anything more than a few ground-nuts, 
because it involved such serious controversy and chaffer 
as sickened the hungry stomach. The Wangwana 
were surprised, after their recent experiences, to meet 
people more extortionate than any they had yet seen, 
and who abated nothing of the high demands they 
made. One of them, unable to obtain food, proceeded 
to the cassava gardens and coolly began to dig up a 
large stock of tubers, and when warned off behaved 
very violently. The natives, indisposed to brook this, 
closed round him, and, binding him hand and foot, 
carried him to their village. 
On hearing of it I despatched men to ascertain the , 
truth, and they brought the chief and some of his elders 
to camp to obtain the price of his freedom. Un- 
fortunately the price was so large — -being four times 
the total value of all our store — that, despite all our 
attempts to induce them to lower their demands, we 
saw that the captive was doomed. One of my chiefs 
suggested that we should lay hands on the chief of 
Kibonda, and retain him until Hamadi, the captive, 
was released ; but this suggestion I positively refused 
