The Lulaputa is said to flow into the Luéna, and that into the Luongo: there must be two Luénas.
22nd June, 1868.—March across a grassy plain southerly to the Luongo, a deep river embowered in a dense forest of trees, all covered with lichens—some flat, others long and thready, like old men's beards, and waving in the wind, just as they do on the mangrove-swamp trees on the coast. The Luongo here is fifty yards broad and three fathoms deep; near its junction with the Luapula it is 100 yards; it rises here to eight fathoms' depth. A bridge of forty yards led us over to an island, and a branch of the river was ten yards beyond: the bridge had been broken, some thought on purpose, but it was soon mended with trees eighteen to twenty yards long. We went a little way beyond, and then halted for a day at a rivulet flowing into the Luongo, 200 yards off.
23rd June, 1868.—We waited for copper here, which was at first refused as payment of debt. I saw now that the Luongo had steep clay banks fifteen feet down, and many meadows, which must be swimming during the rains. The Luéna is said to rise east of this.
[In a private letter Livingstone shows that he had seldom been more affected by the sufferings of slaves than at this time, and it would perhaps be difficult to imagine any scene more calculated to excite misery and distress of mind.
The following incident deals with the firm belief in a future state, which enters so largely into the minds of all Africans, and which for very lack of guidance assumes all the distorted growths of superstition.
He must be of a thankless spirit who does not long to substitute the great vision of future peace afforded by Christianity, in lieu of the ghastly satisfaction which cheered these men, when he sees by the light of this story the capacity that exists for realising a life beyond the grave.]
24th June, 1868.—Six men slaves were singing as if they did not feel the weight and degradation of the slave-sticks. I asked the cause of their mirth, and was told that they rejoiced at the idea "of coming back after death and haunting and killing those who had sold them." Some of the words I had to inquire about; for instance, the meaning of the words "to haunt and kill by spirit power;" then it was, "Oh, you sent me off to Manga (sea-coast), but the yoke is off when I die, and back I shall come to haunt and to kill you." Then all joined in the chorus, which was the name of each vendor. It told not of fun, but of the bitterness and tears of such as were oppressed, and on the side of the oppressors there was a power: there be higher than they!
Pérémbé was one of the culprits thus menaced. The slave-owner asked Kapika's wife if she would return to kill Kapika. The others answered to the names of the different men with laughter. Her heart was evidently sore: for a lady to come so low down is to her grievous. She has lost her jaunty air, and is, with her head shaved, ugly; but she never forgets to address her captors with dignity, and they seem to fear her.
25th June, 1868.—We went over flat forest with patches of brown haematite cropping out; this is the usual iron ore, but I saw in a village pieces of specular iron-ore which had been brought for smelting. The Luongo flowed away somewhat to our right or west, and the villagers had selected their site where only well-water could be found: we went ten minutes towards the Luongo and got abundance.