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After a total of two hours and a quarter we reached Banza Chisalla: it is a "small country," in African parlance, a succursal of Boma proper, the Banza on the hills beyond the reedy, grassy plain.
During a month's residence amongst the pagans of the interior, where the houses swarmed with serviles, and where my outfit, which was never locked up, must have represented a plate-chest in England, not the smallest article was "found missing," nor could anything be touched except by collusion with the head man. Up the Congo to Banza Nokki.
Gidi Mavunga, wearing pagne and fetish-bag, and handling a thin stick in which two bulges had been cut, led us out of Banza Nokki, and took a S.S.W. direction. I sent home specimens of this gossypium arboreum, which everywhere grows wild and which is chiefly used for wicks. There is scant hope of cotton-culture amongst a people whose industry barely suffices for ground-nuts.
My patience had been severely tried on first arrival at Banza Nokki. From ruler to slave every one begged for cloth and rum, till I learned to hate the names of these necessaries. Besides the five recognized kings of the district, who wore black cloth coats, all the petty chiefs of the neighbourhood flocked in, importunate to share the spoils.
When "fetish is taken off," as by the seller of palm wine who tastes it in presence of the buyer, the precaution is evidently against poison. Many of these "Kizila" are self-imposed, for instance a water melon may never enter Banza Nokki, and, though slaves may eat bananas upon a journey, the master may not. Others refuse the flesh of a fowl until it has been tasted by a woman.
Papagayo had a bag of grass-cloth and bits of cane, from which protruded strips of leather and scarlet broadcloth. At 6.45 A.M. on Saturday, September 12, we exchanged the fields surrounding Banza Chinguvu for a ridge or narrow plateau trending to the north-east and bending to the magnetic north. A few minutes led to a rock-slope, fit only for goat-hoofs or nude- footed natives.
It is only fair to confess that no race is harsher in its language and manners to its "black brethren," than the liberated Africans of the English settlements. At Banza Nokki I saw the first specimen of a Mundongo slave girl. She described her tribe as living inland to the east and north- east of the Congo peoples, distant two moons a detail, of course, not to be depended upon.
This Egyptian bush extends from the Congo mouth to Banza Nokki, our landing-place; it grows thickest about Porto da Lenha, and it thins out above and below: I afterwards observed it in the sweet water marshes of Syria and the Brazils. We passed sundry settlements Loango Pequeno, Loango Grande, and others and many canoes were seen plying up and down.
The climate of these breezy uplands is superior even to that of Banza Nokki, which lies some 170 feet lower; and the nights are sensibly cooler. A few fathoms of altitude here make a surprising difference.
Travelling up the south-eastern reach, we passed a triangular insulated rock off the southern bank, and then the "diabolitos" outlying Point Kilu, opposite Banza Vinda on the other side.
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