SURMOUNTING THE FALLS OF THE OGOWAI.
Page 193.
slaves and ivory, and endeavoured by most lavish promises of reward to induce the men forming them to convey the news to Karema that I was still alive; but my doing so only resulted in a closer guard being kept on my actions, and my being removed from Teta’s guardianship and put to lodge in a hut close by Kifura’s, where I was never left alone for a moment. During the period of my stay with the Balaba I was never ill-treated, being regarded as a sort of sacred being. I was amply supplied with food and cloth. With the cloth I managed to make myself clothes after the European fashion, which were so much admired that I was constantly employed as tailor for Kifura and his principal men.
Having a sufficiency of food and drink, I gradually sank into an apathetic condition, and did not care for more than the occurrences of the day, and I quite lost my reckoning of the lapse of time. From this state I was at last aroused by the following incidents.
Kifura and the Balaba were constantly engaged in war with some of the neighbouring tribes in search of ivory and slaves; and in one of these many of the Balaba were slain, and Kifura himself was taken prisoner. The news of his defeat and capture was brought in by a fetichman, who was instructed to ask for a large quantity of cloth, beads, and other goods for his ransom.
A council of the elders was summoned to discuss the matter, and, attracted by the noise, I went and listened to the discussion. As soon as the fetichman saw me he asked from whence I had come, and what a white man was doing in Kifura’s village. When he was told I was Kifura’s white man, he said it could not be endured that Kifura should have a white man while those who had conquered him had none; but if I were given over to him, Kifura and his fellow-prisoners would be liberated without any further payment.
Now that the novelty of my presence had worn off, the elders did not attach any great importance to my possession, and gladly accepted the offer. Next day a party of men set off, taking me with them to the place where the exchange was to be made. Before leaving I was permitted to say farewell to my kind protectress Teta, who wept at losing me, and said that her husband and children being dead I had been to her in the place of a son. Opening a bark box which contained her choicest treasures, she took from it a string of beads to which hung the polished base of a sea-shell, and this she said had come into her husband’s hands from a man who travelled almost to the world’s end, and would protect me from many dangers.