en for a
time would keep up with wonderful endurance, but it happened sometimes
that the sound of dancing and the merry tinkle of the small drums would
fall on their ears in passing near to a village; then the memory of home
and happy days proved too much for them; they cried and sobbed, the
"broken-heart" came on, and they rapidly sank.

The adults as a rule came into the slave-sticks from treachery, and had
never been slaves before. Very often the Arabs would promise a present
of dried fish to villagers if they would act as guides to some distant
point, and as soon as they were far enough away from their friends they
were seized and pinned into the yoke from which there is no escape.
These poor fellows would expire in the way the Doctor mentions, talking
to the last of their wives and children who would never know what had
become of them. On one occasion twenty captives succeeded in escaping as
follows. Chained together by the neck, and in the custody of an Arab
armed with a gun, they were sent off to collect wood; at a given signal,
one of them called the guard to look at something which he pretended he
had found: when he stooped down they threw themselves upon him and
overpowered him, and after he was dead managed to break the chain and
make off in all directions.]

Rice sown on 19th October was in ear in seventy days. A leopard killed
my goat, and a gun set for him went off at 10 P.M.--the ball broke both
hind legs and one fore leg, yet he had power to spring up and bite a man
badly afterwards; he was a male, 2 feet 4 inches at withers, and 6 feet
8 inches from tip of nose to end of tail.

_1st January, 1871._--O Father! help me to finish this work to Thy
honour.

Still detained at Bambarre, but a caravan of 500 muskets is reported
from the coast: it may bring me other men and goods.

Rain daily. A woman was murdered without cause close by the camp; the
murderer said she was a witch and speared her: the body is exposed till
the affair is settled, probably by a fine of goats.

The Manyuema are the most bloody, callous savages I know; one puts a
scarlet feather from a parrot's tail on the ground, and challenges those
near to stick it in the hair: he who does so must kill a man or woman!

Another custom is that none dare wear the skin of the musk cat, Ngawa,
unless he has murdered somebody: guns alone prevent them from killing us
all, and for no reason either.

_16th January, 1871._--Ramadan ended last night,