Chapter Six.
The Crystal Mountains.
Several days had passed away. Our progress had, of necessity, been slow; but it was a satisfaction to feel that we were going towards the south, and getting nearer to where we might hope to meet with assistance. We had all kept our health, and even my young cousins seemed in no way to have suffered; indeed, they looked stronger and better than they were when they landed. Our bearers, however, had for some time shown a disinclination to proceed. They told Senhor Silva that they had come further than they had bargained for, and evidently began to doubt our intentions. They knew very well that their countrymen were carried off in great numbers by the whites; and stories had been told them about the cruelties practised by those white men, and that they even collect people merely to slaughter and eat them. Although they did not perhaps suspect us of such intentions, yet altogether, in spite of the bribes we had to offer them, they thought it wiser to return to their own people. Senhor Silva promised them that as soon as we could find a spot on which to settle, if they did not wish to remain with us, they should be paid and allowed to depart.
Chickango and Timbo had by this time become great friends. They were able to converse freely together; and Timbo told me that he was doing his utmost to instruct his countryman.
“Timbo tell de Chicken all about England and Cape Town, and de oder countries of de world, and de big ships, and de rich white men; and, more dan dat, I tell him dat he got soul, and dat white man and black man hab de same God; and if he stay wid us, we treat him like one broder. You see, I no t’ink he go away now.”
Not without the greatest difficulty, however, could Chickango persuade his countrymen to proceed further with us. The hills over which we were travelling were covered thickly with wood, so that often we could see but a short distance either on one side or the other. Now and then we came to openings, whence we looked down on the wide-spreading country on either side, partly hilly or undulating, and then stretching away in an even plain, intersected by rivers, till lost to sight. Stanley and Senhor Silva, with their guns, were ranging the country on either side.
“Listen!” cried David, who was walking by my side. “What noise is that?”
I listened.
“It sounds like the roar of breakers on a rocky shore,” I observed.