“Aye, would we not, but Master won’t liberate us.”
Amongst that group was one old man quite grey, who declared he had been on the islands over thirty years, and his conversation so interested me that I asked him to describe his journey to the coast. This, though a story over thirty years old, was full of terrible interest. The old man had by this time gained some confidence, and when speaking of the district where he was first sold I became convinced that his home was in the far hinterland of the Congo. With unexpected suddenness I startled him by uttering one of the rhythmic morning greetings of his native tongue. The old man started at first, as if struck with a whip, then, like a man half awake, he appeared to reach after some unseen thing; then at last it suddenly broke in upon him that the language he had heard was the music of his boyhood; his wrinkled old face was wreathed in smiles, his tired eyes lit up, and then in short animated sentences he poured forth question after question.
“Oh! white man, tell me about Luebo, tell me about Basongo.”
“Tell me is Kalamba still alive?”
The impetuosity of the questions, the lively gestures, the hungering look in those brown eyes showed how the old man thirsted for information of his little village away on the banks of the broad Kasai.
SLAVES ON SAN THOMÉ.
DISUSED SLAVE COMPOUND IN REAR OF HOUSE, CATUMBELLA.