Preparations for the March . 243 
No, never! never!’ Yet this lady was an English¬ 
woman.” And when James Barbot’s supercargo 
begins to examine his negroes like cattle he is 
begged, for decency’s sake, to do it in a private 
place, “ which shows these blacks are very modest.” 
It rather proved the whites to be the reverse. 
At 7.20 a.m. on September 11, the “moleques” 
seized our luggage, and we suddenly found our¬ 
selves on the path. Gidi Mavunga, wearing pagne 
and fetish-bag, and handling a thin stick in which 
two bulges had been cut, led us out of Banza 
Nokki, and took a S.S.W. direction. The uneven 
ground was covered with a bitter tomato (nenga) 
and with the shrub which, according to Herodotus, 
bears wool instead of fruit. I sent home speci¬ 
mens of this gossypium arboreum , which every¬ 
where grows wild and which is chiefly used for 
wicks. There is scant hope of cotton-culture 
amongst a people whose industry barely suffices 
for ground-nuts. The stiff clay soil everywhere 
showed traces of iron, and the guide pointed out 
a palm-tree which had been split by the electric 
fluid, and a broad, deep furrow, several feet long, 
ending in a hole. The Nzazhi (lightning) is as 
dangerous and as much dreaded on these hills 
as in Uganda: the south-west trade meets the 
land wind from the north-east; strata of clouds 
in different states of electricity combine, says the 
popular theory, to produce the thunder and light- 
