"I understand," said Frank. "We desire to be so situated that the dishonesty of the men who watch our property in our absence, and a sudden declaration of war between M'tesa and some other ruler, cannot wreck our expedition completely."
The Doctor assented, and on this basis the work of selection went on. By the time it was ended there was not much left to select, except the most bulky and least valuable articles.
The next morning Doctor Bronson sent Abdul to the king with an appropriate present, and asked that the porters might be sent to carry the goods to Usavara. He had already despatched twenty men, in charge of Frank, with the instruments, camp equipage, and several boxes of ammunition. There would have been no difficulty about engaging the entire number for the work, but it was thought the king would prefer to show his authority by ordering his subjects to be at the service of the white men.
By the afternoon of the next day everything they wanted was at Usavara, and ten boats had been assigned to their use for the journey to the falls and back. The king had given the necessary orders, but according to the custom of Africa it was necessary for the Doctor to make a bargain with the head-men of the boats, who were to receive payment in cloth, brass wire, beads, and other currency of Ugunda, very much as if they had not been in the service of the king at all.
THE KING'S SLAVES CARRYING FUEL AND CUTTING RICE.
They passed the night in the huts which had been assigned to them by the king, and bright and early the next morning the work of loading the boats was begun. Doctor Bronson had promised the captains an extra present if they would hurry matters as much as possible, and he certainly had no cause of complaint. The boatmen were assisted by a gang of the king's slaves, who were brought from a neighboring field, where they had been carrying fuel and cultivating rice. Though M'tesa had become a Christian he had not reached the point of looking upon slavery as at all incompatible with his new religion. He not only kept a large number of slaves, most of them captives taken in wars with his neighbors, but he had no objection to dealing in human merchandise whenever he could make a good bargain. When he was told that it was not proper for a Christian to hold slaves, or buy and sell them, he replied that a good deal of the slave-trade of Africa was owing to the encouragement of Christian nations, and asked if there had never been any slaves in England and America. He even made quotations from the Bible in support of his theory, and threw several difficulties in the way of a free discussion of the subject.
