1883.
Dec. I.
Stanley
Falls.
meal, pounding corn, or making crockery. On the
waterside are the canoe-wrights doing odd jobs—
binding a split bow, a split stern, or a leaky crack,
or perhaps cutting out a decayed part and preparing
a piece of plank to replace it.
These are the people with whom we proposed to
negotiate for partnership in the proprietory rights over
the mainland and the isles of the seventh cataract.
With the Arabs for our friends, it was clear there
would be no dissentients, since both Arabs and aborigines
perceived possible benefits. Our settlement at
the Falls would enable the half-castes of Nyangwe'-to
obtain cloth to wear at a much cheaper rate than they
could obtain it from the East Coast, and the same might
be said of various trifles, such as knives, powder, beads,
wire, broadcloth, cottons, tools, thread and- needles.
Medicines might be purchased from our establishment
at the Falls; while the native chiefs might, by monthly
subsidies of cloth, receive considerable additions to their
hard-earned wealth, and the tribe itself be rendered
much more presentable as cloth-wearing people than
they are in their unqualified nudity.
On the 2nd we cut a path along the right bank
through the jungle, and crossed over to the island of
Wane' Mikunga. The chiefs of the tribes were all met
according to a notice which had been given. They
first of all gave us a large present of bearded
Silurus, catfish, and a species of the pike. Among
the pile there was the well-known scaleless Singa
of the Tanganika, an d ' scale fish of the size of
mackerel, which we found to be afterwards wholesome
and sweet. Wane
Our palaver was then opened. In brief, we asked to
be allowed to stay with them and build a town, and to
live in peace with them as their friends and protectors.
This exposition of our purpose elicited a lively response.
A speaker stood up, and listening to the words m
short sentences from our guides, he seemed to be
mechanically repeating them, while the others maintained
a profound silence until the speaker ended,
when all at once a furious hubbub commenced. One
might have imagined they were about to fling themselves
upon one another, so violent were they in
gesture, and so rapid and voluble in speech. This
fury subsiding, one after another got up and expounded
his views on the matter. If he spoke well and to
the point, they who considered his words pertinent
and sensible got up and arranged his grass-cloth that
covered his rear p a rts ; those who dissented poured
forth a torrent of what we supposed were vituperations.
This continued until they exhausted themselves, when
the palaver was adjourned until the next day at the
same hour.
Late in the day a messenger from the guide came
to inform me that it was very likely an agreement
would be arrived at the next day, and that I might
prepare the goods and have them ready. They consisted
of beads, knives, mirrors, cloth, wire, &c.
On the 3rd there were some more violent language
and furious colloquial torrents, which gradually subsided
into decent and tranquil manners. A price was
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