Chap. XVI. 
A MEKMAN. 
289 
reverence at onr religious services. This will appear important, 
if the reader remembers the almost total want of prayer and 
reverence we encountered in the south. 
Our friends informed us that Shinte would be highly honoured 
by the presence of three white men in his town at once. Two 
others had sent forward notice of their approach from another 
quarter (the west) ; could it be Barth or Krapf ? How pleasant 
to meet with Europeans in such an out-of-the-way region! The 
rush of thoughts made me almost forget my fever. Are they of 
the same colour as I am ?-—Yes ; exactly so.”—-And have the 
same hair Is that hair ? we thought it was a wig; we never 
saw the like before ; this white man must be of the sort that 
lives in the sea.” Henceforth my men took this hint, and 
always sounded my praises as a true specimen of the variety 
of white men who live in the sea. Only look at his hair—it 
is made quite straight by the sea-water!” 
I explained to them again and again that, when it was said we 
came out of the sea, it did not mean that we came from beneath 
the water; but the fiction has been widely spread in the interior 
by the Mambari, that the real white men live m the sea, and the 
myth was too good not to be taken advantage of by my com¬ 
panions ; so, notwithstanding my injunctions, I believe that, when 
I was out of hearing, my men always represented themselves as 
led by a genuine merman : “ Just see his hair ! ” If I returned 
from walking to a little distance, they would remark of some to 
whom they had been holdmg forth, ‘‘ These people want to see 
your hair.” 
As the strangers had woolly ham like themselves, I had to 
give up the idea of meeting anything more European, than two 
half-caste Portuguese, engaged in trading for slaves, ivory, and 
bees’-wax. 
16^A.—-After a short march we came to a most lovely 
valley about a mile and a half wide, and stretching away east¬ 
wards up to a low prolongation of Monakadzi. A small stream 
meanders down the centre of this pleasant green glen; and on a 
little rill, which flows into it from the western side, stands the 
town of' Kabompo; or, as he likes best to be called, Shinte. 
(Lat. 12° 37' 35" S., long. 22° 47' E.) When Manenko thought 
the sun was high enough for us to make a lucky entrance, we 
u 
