mmunition only injures the men who enforce it. The
Cape government, as already observed, in order to gratify a company of
independent Boers, whose well-known predilection for the practice of
slavery caused them to stipulate that a number of peaceable, honest
tribes should be kept defenseless, agreed to allow free trade in
arms and ammunition to the Boers, and prevent the same trade to the
Bechuanas. The Cape government thereby unintentionally aided, and
continues to aid, the Boers to enslave the natives. But arms and
ammunition flow in on all sides by new channels, and where formerly the
price of a large tusk procured but one musket, one tusk of the same size
now brings ten. The profits are reaped by other nations, and the only
persons really the losers, in the long run, are our own Cape merchants,
and a few defenseless tribes of Bechuanas on our immediate frontier.

Mr. Rego, the commandant, very handsomely offered me a soldier as a
guard to Ambaca. My men told me that they had been thinking it would
be better to turn back here, as they had been informed by the people of
color at Cassange that I was leading them down to the sea-coast only to
sell them, and they would be taken on board ship, fattened, and eaten,
as the white men were cannibals. I asked if they had ever heard of an
Englishman buying or selling people; if I had not refused to take a
slave when she was offered to me by Shinte; but, as I had always behaved
as an English teacher, if they now doubted my intentions, they had
better not go to the coast; I, however, who expected to meet some of my
countrymen there, was determined to go on. They replied that they only
thought it right to tell me what had been told to them, but they did
not intend to leave me, and would follow wherever I should lead the way.
This affair being disposed of for the time, the commandant gave them
an ox, and me a friendly dinner before parting. All the merchants of
Cassange accompanied us, in their hammocks carried by slaves, to the
edge of the plateau on which their village stands, and we parted with
the feeling in my mind that I should never forget their disinterested
kindness. They not only did every thing they could to make my men and me
comfortable during our stay; but, there being no hotels in Loanda, they
furnished me with letters of recommendation to their friends in that
city, requesting them to receive me into their houses, for without these
a stranger might find himself a lod