310 
OUR ENCAMPMENT SURROUNDED. Chap. XYITI. 
explanation tliat this was the customary tribute to chiefs in the 
part from which we had come, and that we always honoured men 
in his position. He returned thanks, and promised to send food. 
Next morning he sent an impudent message, with a very small 
present of meal; scorning the meat he had accepted, he de¬ 
manded either a man, an ox, a gun, powder, cloth, or a shell; 
and in the event of refusal to comply with his demand, he inti¬ 
mated his intention to prevent our further progress. We replied, 
we should have thought ourselves fools if we had scorned his 
small present, and demanded other food instead; and even sup¬ 
posing we had possessed the articles named, no black man ouglit 
to impose a tribute on a party that did not trade in slaves. The 
servants who brought the message said tliat, when sent to the 
Mamhari, they had always got a quantity of cloth from them for 
their master, and now expected the same, or something else as 
an equivalent, from me. 
We heard some of the Chiboque remark, They have only five 
gunsand about mid-day, Njamhi collected all his people, and 
surrounded our encampment. Their object was evidently to 
plunder us of everything. My men seized their javelins, and 
stood on the defensive, while the young Chiboque had drawn 
their swords and brandished them with great fury. Some even 
pointed their guns at me, and nodded to each other, as much as 
to say, ‘‘ This is the way we shall do with him.” I sat on my 
camp-stool, wdth my double-barrelled gun across my knees, and 
invited the chief to be seated also. When he and his counsellors 
had sat down on the ground in front of me, I asked what crime 
we had committed that he had come armed in that way. He 
replied that one of my men, Pitsane, while sitting at the fire 
tliat morning, had, in spitting, allowed a small quantity of the 
saliva to fall on the leg of one of his men, and this guilt” he 
wanted to be settled by the fine of a man, ox, or gun. Pitsane 
admitted the fact of a little saliva having fallen on the Chiboque, 
and in proof of its being a pure accident, mentioned that he had 
given the man a piece of meat, by way of making friends, just 
before it happened, and wiped it off with his hand as soon as it 
fell. In reference to a man being given, I declared that we were 
all ready to die rather than give up one of our number to be a 
slave; that my men might as well give me as I give one of them. 
