g regularly to Ujiji for supplies of goods.
_20th June, 1871._--Two of Dugumbe's party brought presents of four
large fundos of beads each. All know that my goods are unrighteously
detained by Shereef and they show me kindness, which I return by some
fine calico which I have. Among the first words Dugumbe said to me were,
"Why your own slaves are your greatest enemies: I will buy you a canoe,
but the Banian slaves' slanders have put all the Manyuema against you."
I knew that this was true, and that they were conscious of the sympathy
of the Ujijian traders, who hate to have me here.
_24th June, 1871._--Hassani's canoe party in the river were foiled by
narrows, after they had gone down four days. Rocks jut out on both
sides, not opposite, but alternate to each other; and the vast mass of
water of the great river jammed in, rushes round one promontory on to
another, and a frightful whirlpool is formed in which the first canoe
went and was overturned, and five lives lost. Had I been there, mine
would have been the first canoe, for the traders would have made it a
point of honour to give me the precedence (although actually to make a
feeler of me), while they looked on in safety. The men in charge of
Hassani's canoes were so frightened by this accident that they at once
resolved to return, though they had arrived in the country of the ivory:
they never looked to see whether the canoes could be dragged past the
narrows, as anyone else would have done. No better luck could be
expected after all their fraud and duplicity in getting the canoes; no
harm lay in obtaining them, but why try to prevent me getting one?
_27th June, 1871._--In answer to my prayers for preservation, I was
prevented going down to the narrows, formed by a dyke of mountains
cutting across country, and jutting a little ajar, which makes the water
in an enormous mass wheel round behind it helplessly, and if the canoes
reach the rock against which the water dashes, they are almost certainly
overturned. As this same dyke probably cuts across country to Lomame, my
plan of going to the confluence and then up won't do, for I should have
to go up rapids there. Again, I was prevented from going down Luamo, and
on the north of its confluence another cataract mars navigation in the
Lualaba, and my safety is thereby secured. We don't always know the
dangers that we are guided past.
_28th June, 1871._--The river has fallen two feet: dark brown water, and
still m
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