Chap. XIX. 
OPPOETUNE AID. 
365 
demand again. My men stripped off the last of their copper rings 
and gave them; but he was still intent on a man. He thought, 
as others did, that my men were slaves. He was a young man, 
with his woolly hair elaborately dressed: that behind was made 
up into a cone, about eight inches in diameter at the base, care¬ 
fully swathed round with red and black thread. As I resisted 
Basbinje chiefs mode of wearing the hair. 
the proposal to deliver up my blanket until they had placed us 
on the western bank, this chief continued to worry us with his 
demands till I was tired. My httle tent was now in tatters, and 
having a wider hole behind than the door in front, I tried in vain 
to he down out of sight of our persecutors. We were on a reedy 
flat, and could not follow our usual plan of a small stockade, in 
which we had time to think over and concoct our plans. As I was 
trying to persuade my men to move on to the bank in spite of 
these people, a young half-caste Portuguese sergeant of mflitia, 
Cypriano di Abreu, made his appearance, and gave the same 
advice. He had come across the Quango in search of bees’-wax. 
When we moved off from the chief who had been plaguing us, 
his people opened a fixe from our sheds, and continued to blaze 
away some time in the dhection we were going, but none of the 
buUets reached us. It is probable that they expected a demon- 
