“ From the Mputu.”
“And those beads, which certainly make you
look handsome?”
He smiled. “ From the Mputu.”
“And that fine brass wire by which you have
succeeded in Showing the beauty of your clear
brown skin?”
He was still more delighted. “ From the
Mputu; we get everything from the Mputu.”
“And wine too?”
“ Yes.”
“ And rum?”
“ Yes.”
“Have the white men been kind to you?”
“ Ah, yes.”
“ Now,” said I, turning to my Babwendé friends,
“ you see this man has been made happy with
a gun, and cloth, and beads, wire, wine, and
rum, and he says the white men treat him well.
Why should not the Babwendé be happier by
knowing the white men? Do you know why
he talks so? He wants to sell those fine things
to the Babwendé himself, for about double what
he paid for them. Don’t you see? You are
wise men.”
The absurd aboriginal protectionist and conservative
lost his influence immediately, and it appeared
as though the Babwendé would start a
caravan instantly for the coast. But the immediate
result of my commercial talk with them was an
invitation to join them in consuming a great
g o u rd fu l of fresh palm-wine.
On the xoth July we embarked the goods,
and descended two miles below Mpakambendi,
and reached the foot of the Nsenga Mount. The
next day we descended in like manner two
miles to the lofty mountain bluff of Nsoroka,
being frequently interrupted by the jagged shaly
dykes which ros^ here and there above the
stream, and caused rapids.
Two miles below Nsoroka we came to Lukalu,
which is a point projecting from the right bank
just above the Mansau Falls and Matunda Rapids,
which we passed by a side-stream without
danger on the 13th. Between Matunda Rapids
and Mansau Falls, we were abreast of Kakongo,
that warlike district of which we had heard.
But though they crossed the river in great
numbers, the men of Kakongo became fast friends
with us, and I was so successful with them that
five men volunteered to accompany me as far
as the “ Njali Ntombo Mataka Falls,” of which
we had heard as being absolutely the “ last fall.”
“ Tuckey’s Cataract,” no doubt, I thought, for
it was surely time that, if there was such a fall,
it ought to be seen.
Below Matunda Falls, in the district of Ngoyo,
are a still more amiable people than the Upper
Babwende, who share the prevalent taste for
boring their ears and noses. We held a grand