there are no white
men's goods in the interior. When I had it in my power, I always gave
something really useful. To Katema, Shinte, and others, I gave presents
which cost me about 2 Pounds each, and I could return to them at any
time without having a character for stinginess. How some men can offer
three buttons, or some other equally contemptible gift, while they have
abundance in their possession, is to me unaccountable. They surely do
not know, when they write it in their books, that they are declaring
they have compromised the honor of Englishmen. The people receive the
offering with a degree of shame, and ladies may be seen to hand it
quickly to the attendants, and, when they retire, laugh until the tears
stand in their eyes, saying to those about them, "Is that a white man?
then there are niggards among them too. Some of them are born without
hearts!" One white trader, having presented an OLD GUN to a chief,
became a standing joke in the tribe: "The white man who made a
present of a gun that was new when his grandfather was sucking his
great-grandmother." When these tricks are repeated, the natives come to
the conclusion that people who show such a want of sense must be told
their duty; they therefore let them know what they ought to give,
and travelers then complain of being pestered with their "shameless
begging". I was troubled by importunity on the confines of civilization
only, and when I first came to Africa.

FEBRUARY 4TH. We were much detained by rains, a heavy shower without
wind falling every morning about daybreak; it often cleared up after
that, admitting of our moving on a few miles. A continuous rain of
several hours then set in. The wind up to this point was always from
the east, but both rain and wind now came so generally from the west,
or opposite direction to what we had been accustomed to in the interior,
that we were obliged to make our encampment face the east, in order to
have them in our backs. The country adjacent to the river abounds in
large trees; but the population is so numerous that, those left being
all green, it is difficult to get dry firewood. On coming to some
places, too, we were warned by the villagers not to cut the trees
growing in certain spots, as they contained the graves of their
ancestors. There are many tamarind-trees, and another very similar,
which yields a fruit as large as a small walnut, of which the elephants
are very fond. It is called Motondo, and the Portugu