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The westing we were making brought us among people who are frequently visited by the Mambari as slave-dealers. This trade causes bloodshed; for when a poor family is selected as the victims, it is necessary to get rid of the older members of it, because they are supposed to be able to give annoyance to the chief afterward by means of enchantments.
They came to purchase slaves, and both Santuru and his head men refused them permission to buy any of the people. The Makololo quoted this precedent when speaking of the Mambari, and said that they, as the present masters of the country, had as good a right to expel them as Santuru. The Mambari reside near Bihe, under an Ambonda chief named Kangombe.
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.
The prices which the Cape merchants could give, after defraying the great expenses of a long journey hither, being very small, made it scarce worth while for the natives to collect produce for that market; and the Mambari, giving only a few bits of print and baize for elephants' tusks worth more pounds than they gave yards of cloth, had produced the belief that trade with them was throwing ivory away.
Indeed, the latter had said to his son, "That hut of incantation will prove fatal to either you or me." When the Mambari, in 1850, took home a favorable report of this new market to the west, a number of half-caste Portuguese slave-traders were induced to come in 1853; and one, who resembled closely a real Portuguese, came to Linyanti while I was there.
Santuru loved to govern men, but Masiko wanted to govern wild beasts only, as he sold his people to the Mambari;" adding an explanation of the return of the captives, and an injunction to him to live in peace, and prevent his people kidnapping the children and canoes of the Makololo, as a continuance in these deeds would lead to war, which I wished to prevent.
This happened so close to the town, where there are no beasts of prey, that we suspect some of the high men of Shinte's court were the guilty parties: they can sell them by night. The Mambari erect large huts of a square shape to stow these stolen ones in; they are well fed, but aired by night only.
Message to Masiko, the Barotse Chief, regarding the Captives Navigation of the Leeambye Capabilities of this District The Leeba Flowers and Bees Buffalo-hunt Field for a Botanist Young Alligators; their savage Nature Suspicion of the Balonda Sekelenke's Present A Man and his two Wives Hunters Message from Manenko, a female Chief Mambari Traders A Dream Sheakondo and his People Teeth-filing Desire for Butter Interview with Nyamoana, another female Chief Court Etiquette Hair versus Wool Increase of Superstition Arrival of Manenko; her Appearance and Husband Mode of Salutation Anklets Embassy, with a Present from Masiko Roast Beef Manioc Magic Lantern Manenko an accomplished Scold: compels us to wait Unsuccessful Zebra-hunt.
Ben Habib told me that Porto had sent letters to Mozambique by the Arab, Ben Chombo, whom I knew; and he has since asserted, in Portugal, that he himself went to Mozambique as well as his letters! But Santuru was once visited by the Mambari, and a distinct recollection of that visit is retained.
But the lands both east and west of the Barotse valley are free from this insect plague. There, however, the slave-trade had defiled the path, and no one ought to follow in its wake unless well armed. The Mambari had informed me that many English lived at Loanda, so I prepared to go thither. The prospect of meeting with countrymen seemed to overbalance the toils of the longer march.