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While delayed, by Manenko's management, among the Balonda villages, a little to the south of the town of Shinte, we were well supplied by the villagers with sweet potatoes and green maize; Sambanza went to his mother's village for supplies of other food. "No; her messenger must return from her uncle first."
As the Leeba seemed still to come from the direction in which we wished to go, I was desirous of proceeding farther up with the canoes; but Nyamoana was anxious that we should allow her people to conduct us to her brother Shinte; and when I explained the advantage of water-carriage, she represented that her brother did not live near the river, and, moreover, there was a cataract in front, over which it would be difficult to convey the canoes.
I asked if they had ever heard of an Englishman buying or selling people; if I had not refused to take a slave when she was offered to me by Shinte; but, as I had always behaved as an English teacher, if they now doubted my intentions, they had better not go to the coast; I, however, who expected to meet some of my countrymen there, was determined to go on.
The lad offered beads, but these were refused with scorn. A shell hanging round his neck, similar to that which Shinte had given me, was the object demanded, and the victim of the trick, as we all knew it to be, was obliged to part with his costly ornament.
The fringe is not, however, the highest in altitude, though the oldest in age. While at this latter place we met a native of Bihe who has visited the country of Shinte three times for the purposes of trade.
I suspect this, like the country of Shinte and Katema, must have been a tsetse district, and only recently rendered capable of supporting other domestic animals besides the goat, by the destruction of the game through the extensive introduction of fire-arms.
On the 8th of June he discovered Lake Dilolo again, saw Shinte again, descended the Zambezi, and reentered Linyanti, which he left on the 3d of November, 1855. This second part of the journey, which would lead the doctor toward the eastern coast, would enable him to finish completely this crossing of Africa from the west to the east.
From this lake is derived, by numerous small streams, the River Loapula, the eastern branch of the Zambesi, which, coming from the N.E., flows past the town of Cazembe. The southern end of this lake is ten days northeast of the town of Cazembe; and as that is probably more than five days from Shinte, we can not have been nearer to it than 150 miles.
This peculiarity of posture was ascribed, by no less an authority than Aristotle, to wine, while those who were sent asleep by beer were believed "to lie upon their backs." Sambanza had got into a state of inebriation from indulging in mead, similar to that which Shinte presented to us, which is much more powerful than boyaloa.
The native Portuguese and Mambari went fully armed with guns, in order to give Shinte a salute; their drummer and trumpeter making all the noise that very old instruments would produce.
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