578 
SELOLE’S HOSTILITY. 
Chap. XXVIll. 
higiilands, but when we descended into the lowlands of Angola, 
and here also, they began to fret on account of it. I myself felt 
an oppressive steaminess in the atmosphere, wliich I had not 
experienced on the liigher lands. 
As the game was abundant and my party very large, I had 
still to supply their wants with the gun. We slaughtered the 
oxen only when unsuccessful in hunting. We always entered 
into firiendly relations with the head-men of the different villages, 
and they presented grain and other food freely. One man gave a 
basinful of rice, the first we met with in the country. It is never 
seen in the interior. He said he knew it was white man’s 
com,” and when I wished to buy some more, he asked me to give 
him a slave. This was the first symptom of the slave-trade on 
tills side of the country. The last of these friendly head-men 
was named Mobala; and having passed him in peace, we had no 
anticipation of anytliing else; but after a few hours we reached 
Selole or Cliilole, and found that he not only considered us enemies, 
but had actually sent an express to raise the tribe of Mburuma 
against us. All the women of Selole had fied, and the few people 
we met, exhibited symptoms of terror. An armed party had 
come from Mburuma in obedience to the call, but the head-man 
of the company, being Mburuma’s brother, suspecting that it was 
a hoax, came to our encampment and told us the whole. When 
we explained our objects, he told us that Mburuma, he had no 
doubt, would receive us well. The reason why Selole acted in 
tills foolish manner, we afterwards found to be tliis: an Italian 
named Simoens, and niclmamed Siriatomba (don’t eat tobacco), 
had married the daughter of a chief called Sekokole, Hving north 
of Tete. He armed a party of fifty slaves with guns, and, 
ascending the river in canoes some distance beyond the island 
Meya makaba, attacked several inhabited islands beyond, securing 
a large number of prisoners, and much ivory. On his return, the 
different chiefs, at the instigation of his father-in-law, who also did 
not msh him to set up as a chief, united, attacked and dispersed the 
party of Simoens, and killed him while trying to escape on foot. 
Selole imagined that I was another Itahan, or, as he expressed it, 
Siriatomba risen from the dead.” In his message to Mburuma 
he even said that Mobala, and all the villages beyond, were 
utterly destroyed by our fire-arms, but the sight of Mobala liim- 
