re his children; and
if we did not pay him he would prevent farther progress. This piece of
civilization I was not prepared to meet, and stood a few seconds looking
at our bold toll-keeper, when one of my men took off three copper
bracelets, which paid for the whole party. The negro was a better man
than he at first seemed, for he immediately went to his garden and
brought us some leaves of tobacco as a present.

When we had got fairly away from the villages, the guides from Kangenke
sat down and told us that there were three paths in front, and, if we
did not at once present them with a cloth, they would leave us to take
whichever we might like best. As I had pointed out the direction in
which Loanda lay, and had only employed them for the sake of knowing the
paths between villages which lay along our route, and always objected
when they led us in any other than the Loanda direction, I wished my
men now to go on without the guides, trusting to ourselves to choose
the path which would seem to lead us in the direction we had always
followed. But Mashauana, fearing lest we might wander, asked leave to
give his own cloth, and when the guides saw that, they came forward
shouting "Averie, Averie!"

In the afternoon of this day we came to a valley about a mile wide,
filled with clear, fast-flowing water. The men on foot were chin deep in
crossing, and we three on ox-back got wet to the middle, the weight of
the animals preventing them from swimming. A thunder-shower descending
completed the partial drenching of the plain, and gave a cold,
uncomfortable "packing in a wet blanket" that night. Next day we found
another flooded valley about half a mile wide, with a small and now
deep rivulet in its middle, flowing rapidly to the S.S.E., or toward
the Kasai. The middle part of this flood, being the bed of what at other
times is the rivulet, was so rapid that we crossed by holding on to the
oxen, and the current soon dashed them to the opposite bank; we then
jumped off, and, the oxen being relieved of their burdens, we could pull
them on to the shallower part. The rest of the valley was thigh deep and
boggy, but holding on by the belt which fastened the blanket to the ox,
we each floundered through the nasty slough as well as we could. These
boggy parts, lying parallel to the stream, were the most extensive we
had come to: those mentioned already were mere circumscribed patches;
these extended for miles along each bank; but even h