Pereira, the first visitor, said (I quote from memory) that Casembe had 20,000 trained soldiers, watered his streets daily, and sacrificed twenty human victims every day.

I could hear nothing of human sacrifices now, and it is questionable if the present Casembe could bring a thousand stragglers into the field.

When he usurped power five years ago, his country was densely peopled; but he was so severe in his punishments--cropping the ears, lopping off the hands, and other mutilations, selling the children for very slight offences, that his subjects gradually dispersed themselves in the neighbouring countries beyond his power.

This is the common mode by which tyranny is cured in parts like these, where fugitives are never returned.

The present Casembe is very poor.