First we went down to the huts, where we saw a number of good-looking young women of mixed blood, all decently dressed and engaged about their household duties.
Also we saw four or five boys and girls, to say nothing of a baby in arms, fine young people, one or two of whom were more white than coloured.
"Those children are very like the Baas with the red beard," remarked Hans reflectively.
"Yes," I said, and shivered, for now I understood the awfulness of this poor man's case.

He was the father of a number of half-breeds who tied him to this spot as anchors tie a ship.

I went on rather hastily past some sheds to a long, low building which proved to be a store.

Here the quarter-blood called Thomaso, and some assistants were engaged in trading with natives from the Zambesi swamps, men of a kind that I had never seen, but in a way more civilised than many further south.

What they were selling or buying, I did not stop to see, but I noticed that the store was full of goods of one sort or another, including a great deal of ivory, which, as I supposed, had come down the river from inland.
Then we walked on to the cultivated fields where we saw corn growing very well, also tobacco and other crops.