THE BAROTSE COUNTRY. 
549 
I owed my life to Maclmuana, who, at the privy council, 
formally opposed a motion for my assassination, saying 
that he had been in Loanda with Livingstone, had been 
well treated by the whites, as were the Luinas who 
accompanied him, and that he would never consent to 
any evil befalling a white man of the same race. He 
went so far as to threaten the constituted authorities,— 
a very serious matter for them, indeed, as in the Lui, 
when ministers fall, the ministers die ; a little measure 
of precaution taken by new counsellors, who, with a 
few strokes of an assegai, cut down opposition to the 
root. 
In Europe it is not unfrequently the fashion for 
political adversaries to blacken the reputation of their 
predecessors, and endeavour to discredit them in the 
eyes of the people, with a view to diminish their 
moral force. But I find the system pursued in the 
Lui, under similar circumstances, to be more straight¬ 
forward, more dignified, and infinitely safer ; by which 
I do not mean to say that I recommend its adoption. 
The Council, in view of the attitude and reasoning 
of Machuana, resolved that sentence of death should 
not be passed upon me ; but, as it would appear, one of 
its members came to a contrary decision, on his own 
account, for that night, having left the camp with the 
intention of taking the altitudes of the moon, an 
assegai, cast by some unseen hand, came so near me 
that the shaft glanced along my left arm. I cast a 
hasty glance in the direction whence the missile came, 
and saw, in the dim light, a negro, at twenty paces’ 
distance, preparing for another throw. To draw my 
revolver and fire at the rascal, was an act rather of 
instinct than of thought. At sight of the flash, the 
fellow turned and fled in the direction of the city, and 
I pursued him. Finding me at his heels, he threw 
himself on the ground. This made me cautious, and I 
approached him very gingerly, prepared again to fire, 
if I observed any evidence of treachery. I saw, how¬ 
ever, that the burly black was lying on his arms, and 
that his assegais had fallen by his side. I seized hold 
