Irebu.
active, and by no means aged-looking, and he waited
to greet me. On going ashore my hand was grasped
hy Mangombo and about half-a-dozen of the principal
men, and we sought the shade of a convenient tree
by the waterside to talk.
I was very soon impressed by the intelligent appearance
of the men grouped around me. They had an air
of worldly knowledge and travel about them, very different
from the stupid bewildering wonderment with
which we were so familiar. For these people were
really acquainted with many lands and tribes on the
Upper Congo. From Stanley Pool to Upoto, a distance
of 600 miles, they knew every landing-place on the
river banks. All the ups and downs of savage life, all
the profits and losses derived from barter, all the diplomatic
arts used by tactful savages were as well known
to them as the Roman alphabet is to us. They knew
the varied lengths of the sina (“ long i of cloth), the
number of matako (brass rods) they were worth,
whether of savelist, florentine, unbleached domestic,
twill, stripe, ticking, blue and white b a ft; the value of
beads per thousand strings, as compared with uncut
pieces of sheeting, or kegs of gunpowder, or flint-lock
muskets, short and long. They could tell, by poising
on the arm, what profit on an ivory tusk purchased
at Langa-Langa would be derived by sale at Stanley
Pool!
No wonder that all this mercantile knowledge had
left its traces on their faces; indeed it is the same as in
your own cities of Europe. Know you not the military
man among you, the lawyer or the merchant, the
banker, the artist or the poet ? It is the same in Africa,
more especially on the Congo, where the people are so
devoted to trade. There is a slight difference, however,
in the features (or rather air diffused over them) of the
resident trader and the trading navigator. The resident
may be a sbarp man at a bargain, but he is as likely as
not to be boorish, rustic, or unsophisticated in manner.
On the other hand, the Wy-yanzi traders of Usindi,
Butunu, Ubangi, and Irebu are sedate and self-possessed
in their deportment, while a certain frank
business-like directness and open-minded simplicity
may be observed in their mode of speech. At the
same time they are barbarous enough not to be averse
from fighting on occasion. They quite surprised me,
after a careful and analytical perusal of their features,
by declaring they were even then at w a r! Upper
Irebu was at war with Lower Irebu! The guns could
be heard even then at it, though I had not the slightest
idea they were fighting.
Generally the first day of acquaintance with the
Congo river tribes is devoted to chatting, sounding, one
another’s principles, and getting at one another s ideas.
The chief entertains his guest with gifts of food, goats,
beer, fisb, &c.; then on the next day commences business
and reciprocal exchange of gifts. So it was at Irebu.
Mangombo gave four hairy thin-tailed sheep, ten
[ glorious bunches of bananas, two great pots of beer, and
I the usual accompaniments of small stores.
The next day we made blood brotherhood. The
' 1883.
June 6«
Irebu.