540 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
were directed at the pompous old “ capitan ” and the 
relief caravan behind him. Several of the Wangwana 
officiously stepped forward to relieve the fatigued and 
perspiring men, and with an extraordinary vigour tossed 
the provisions — rice, fish, and tobacco bundles — on the 
ground, except the demijohn of rum, which they called 
pombe, and handled most carefully. The “ capitan was 
anxious about my private stores, but the scene transpiring 
about the provisions was so absorbingly interesting that 
1 coulcl pay no attention as yet to them. While the 
captains of the messes were ripping open the sacks and 
distributing the provisions in equal quantities, Murabo, 
the boat-boy, struck up a glorious loud-swelling chant of 
triumph and success, into which he deftly, and with a 
poet’s licence, interpolated verses laudatory of the white 
men of the second sea. The bard, extemporizing, sang 
much about the great cataracts, cannibals, and pagans, 
hunger, the wild wastes, great inland seas, and niggardly 
tribes, and wound up by declaring that the journey was 
over, that we were even then smelling the breezes of the 
western ocean, and his master’s brothers had redeemed 
them from the “ hell of hunger/’ And at the end of each 
verse the voices rose high and clear to the chorus — 
•‘Then sing, 0 friends, sing; the journey is ended; 
Sing aloud, 0 friends, sing to this great sea.” 
“ Enough now ; fall to,” said Manwa Sera, at which 
the people nearly smothered him by their numbers. 
Into each apron, bowl, and utensil held out, the several 
captains expeditiously tossed full measures of rice and 
generous quantities of sweet potatoes and portions of 
fish. The younger men and women hobbled after water, 
and others set about gathering fuel, and the camp was all 
animation, where but half an hour previously all had 
been listless despair. Many people were unable to wait 
for the food to be cooked, but ate the rice and the fish 
raw. But when the provisions had been all distributed, 
and the noggin of rum had been equitably poured into 
each man’s cup, and the camp was in a state of genial 
excitement, and groups of dark figures discussed with 
