Hassani with ten slaves dug at the malachite mines of Katanga for three months, and gained a hundred frasilahs of copper, or 3500 lbs. We hear of a half-caste reaching the other side of Lomamé, probably from Congo or Ambriz, but the messengers had not seen him.
1st May, 1871.—Katomba's people arrived from the Babisa, where they sold all their copper at two rings for a tusk, and then found that abundance of ivory still remained: door-posts and house-pillars had been made of ivory which now was rotten. The people of Babisa kill elephants now and bring tusks by the dozen, till the traders get so many that in this case they carried them by three relays. They dress their hair like the Bashukulompo, plaited into upright basket helmets: no quarrel occurred, and great kindness was shown to the strangers. A river having very black water, the Nyengeré, flows into Lualaba from the west, and it becomes itself very large: another river or water, Shamikwa, falls into it from the south-west, and it becomes still larger: this is probably the Lomamé. A short-horned antelope is common.
3rd May, 1871.—Abed informs me that a canoe will come in five days. Word was sent after me by the traders south of us not to aid me, as I was sure to die where I was going: the wish is father to the thought! Abed was naturally very anxious to get first into the Babisa ivory market, yet he tried to secure a canoe for me before he went, but he was too eager, and a Manyuema man took advantage of his desire, and came over the river and said that he had one hollowed out, and he wanted goats and beads to hire people to drag it down to the water. Abed on my account advanced five goats, a thousand cowries, and many beads, and said that he would tell me what he wished in return: this was debt, but I was so anxious to get away I was content to take the canoe on any terms. However, it turned out that the matter on the part of the headman whom Abed trusted was all deception: he had no canoe at all, but knew of one belonging to another man, and wished to get Abed and me to send men to see it—in fact, to go with their guns, and he would manage to embroil them with the real owner, so that some old feud should be settled to his satisfaction. On finding that I declined to be led into his trap, he took a female slave to the owner, and on his refusal to sell the canoe for her, it came out that he had adopted a system of fraud to Abed. He had victimized Abed, who was naturally inclined to believe his false statements, and get off to the ivory market. His people came from the Kuss country in the west with sixteen tusks, and a great many slaves bought and not murdered for. The river is rising fast, and bringing down large quantities of aquatic grass, duckweed, &c. The water is a little darker in colour than at Cairo. People remove and build their huts on the higher forest lands adjacent. Many white birds (the paddy bird) appear, and one Ibis religiosa; they pass north.
The Bakuss live near Lomamé; they were very civil and kind to the strangers, but refused passage into the country. At my suggestion, the effect of a musket-shot was shown on a goat: they thought it supernatural, looked up to the clouds, and offered to bring ivory to buy the charm that could draw lightning down. When it was afterwards attempted to force a path, they darted aside on seeing the Banyamwezi's followers putting the arrows into the bowstrings, but stood in mute amazement looking at the guns, which mowed them down in large numbers. They thought that muskets were the insignia of chieftainship. Their chiefs all go with a long straight staff of rattan, having a quantity of black medicine smeared on each end, and no weapons in their hands: they imagined that the guns were carried as insignia of the same kind; some, jeering in the south, called them big tobacco-pipes; they have no fear on seeing a gun levelled at them.
They use large and very long spears very expertly in the long grass and forest of their country, and are terrible fellows among themselves, and when they become acquainted with firearms will be terrible to the strangers who now murder them. The Manyuema say truly, "If it were not for your guns, not one of you would ever return to your country." The Bakuss cultivate more than the southern Manyuema, especially Pennisetum and dura, or Holeus sorghum; common coffee is abundant, and they use it, highly scented with vanilla, which must be fertilized by insects; they hand round cups of it after meals. Pineapples too are abundant. They bathe regularly twice a day: their houses are of two storeys. The women have rather compressed heads, but very pleasant countenances; and ancient Egyptian, round, wide-awake eyes. Their numbers are prodigious; the country literally swarms with people, and a chief's town extends upwards of a mile. But little of the primeval forest remains. Many large pools of standing water have to be crossed, but markets are held every eight or ten miles from each other, and to these the people come from far, for the market is as great an institution as shopping is with the civilized. Illicit intercourse is punished by the whole of the offender's family being enslaved.
The Bakuss smelt copper from the ore and sell it very cheaply to the traders for beads. The project of going in canoes now appeared to the half-castes so plausible, that they all tried to get the Bagenya on the west bank to lend them, and all went over to mix blood and make friends with the owners, then all slandered me as not to be trusted, as they their blood-relations were; and my slaves mutinied and would go no further. They mutinied three times here, and Hassani harboured them till I told him that, if an English officer harboured an Arab slave he would be compelled by the Consul to refund the price, and I certainly would not let him escape; this frightened him; but I was at the mercy of slaves who had no honour, and no interest in going into danger.
16th May, 1871.—Abed gave me a frasilah of Matunda beads, and I returned fourteen fathoms of fine American sheeting, but it was an obligation to get beads from one whose wealth depended on exchanging beads for ivory.
16th May, 1871.—At least 3000 people at market to-day, and my going among them has taken away the fear engendered by the slanders of slaves and traders, for all are pleased to tell me the names of the fishes and other things. Lepidosirens are caught by the neck and lifted out of the pot to show their fatness. Camwood ground and made into flat cakes for sale and earthen balls, such as are eaten in the disease safura or earth-eating, are offered and there is quite a roar of voices in the multitude, haggling. It was pleasant to be among them compared to being with the slaves, who were all eager to go back to Zanzibar: some told me that they were slaves, and required a free man to thrash them, and proposed to go back to Ujiji for one. I saw no hope of getting on with them, and anxiously longed for the arrival of Dugumbé; and at last Abed overheard them plotting my destruction. "If forced to go on, they would watch till the first difficulty arose with the Manyuema, then fire off their guns, run away, and as I could not run as fast as they, leave me to perish." Abed overheard them speaking loudly, and advised me strongly not to trust myself to them any more, as they would be sure to cause my death. He was all along a sincere friend, and I could not but take his words as well-meant and true.
18th May, 1871.—Abed gave me 200 cowries and some green beads. I was at the point of disarming my slaves and driving them away, when they relented, and professed to be willing to go anywhere; so, being eager to finish my geographical work, I said I would run the risk of their desertion, and gave beads to buy provisions for a start north. I cannot state how much I was worried by these wretched slaves, who did much to annoy me, with the sympathy of all the slaving crew. When baffled by untoward circumstances the bowels plague me too, and discharges of blood relieve the headache, and are as safety-valves to the system. I was nearly persuaded to allow Mr. Syme to operate on me when last in England, but an old friend told me that his own father had been operated on by the famous John Hunter, and died in consequence at the early age of forty. His advice saved me, for this complaint has been my safety-valve.
The Zingifuré, or red pigment, is said to be a cure for itch common among both natives and Arab slaves and Arab children.