I declined; because, no matter what charges I gave, my Banian slaves would be sure to shed human blood.

We can go nowhere but the people of the country ask us to kill their fellow-men, nor can they be induced to go to villages three miles off, because there, in all probability, live the murderers of fathers, uncles, or grandfathers--a dreadful state truly.

The traders are as bloodthirsty every whit as the Manyuema, where no danger exists, but in most cases where the people can fight they are as civil as possible.

At Moere Mpanda's, the son of Casembe, Mohamad Bogharib left a debt of twenty-eight slaves and eight bars of copper, each seventy pounds, and did not dare to fire a shot because they saw they had met their match: here his headmen are said to have bound the headmen of villages till a ransom was paid in tusks! Had they only gone three days further to the Babisa, to whom Moene-mokaia's men went, they would have got fine ivory at two rings a tusk, while they had paid from ten to eighteen.

Here it is as sad a tale to tell as was that of the Manganja scattered and peeled by the Waiyau agents of the Portuguese of Tette.