Hit.
so> wise, sometimes rushed with great Telocity at us, thinking
that we were some huge animal swimming. They kept about
a foot from the surface, hut made three well-defined ripples
f rom the feet and body, which marked their rapid progress;
raising the head out of the water when only a few yards
from the expected feast, down they went to the bottom
like; a stone, without touching the boat.
In the middle of March of the same year (1859), we started
again for a second trip on the Shire. The natives were: now
friendly, and readily sold us riee, fowls, and corn. We entered
into amicable relations with the Chief, Chibisa, whose village
was about ten miles below the cataract. He had sent two men
on our first visit to invite us to drink beer; but the steamer
was such a terrible; apparition to them, that, after shouting
the invitation, they jumped ashore, and left their canoe to
drift down the stream. Chibisa was a remarkably shrewd man,
the very image, save his dark hue, of One o f our most, celebrated
London actors, and the most intelligent Chief, by far, m
this quarter. A great deal of fighting had fallen to his lot, he
said;.: but it was always others who began; he was invariably
in the right, and they alone were to blame. He was moreover
a firm believer in the divine fight of kings. He was an
ordinary man, he said, when his father died, and left him the
chieftainship; but directly he succeeded to the high office, he
was conscious of power passing into his head, and down his
back; he felt it enter, and knew that he was a Chief, clothed
with authority, and possessed of wisdom ; and . people then
began to fear and reverence him. He mentioned this, as
one would a fact, of natural history, any doubt being quite
out of the question. His people, too, believed in him,
for they bathed in the river without the slightest fear of
crocodiles,; the Chief having placed a powerful medicine