said that he would tell me what he wished in return: this was debt, but
I was so anxious to get away I was content to take the canoe on any
terms. However, it turned out that the matter on the part of the headman
whom Abed trusted was all deception: he had no canoe at all, but knew of
one belonging to another man, and wished to get Abed and me to send men
to see it--in fact, to go with their guns, and he would manage to
embroil them with the real owner, so that some old feud should be
settled to his satisfaction. On finding that I declined to be led into
his trap, he took a female slave to the owner, and on his refusal to
sell the canoe for her, it came out that he had adopted a system of
fraud to Abed. He had victimized Abed, who was naturally inclined to
believe his false statements, and get off to the ivory market. His
people came from the Kuss country in the west with sixteen tusks, and a
great many slaves bought and not murdered for. The river is rising fast,
and bringing down large quantities of aquatic grass, duckweed, &c. The
water is a little darker in colour than at Cairo. People remove and
build their huts on the higher forest lands adjacent. Many white birds
(the paddy bird) appear, and one Ibis religiosa; they pass north.

The Bakuss live near Lomamé; they were very civil and kind to the
strangers, but refused passage into the country. At my suggestion, the
effect of a musket-shot was shown on a goat: they thought it
supernatural, looked up to the clouds, and offered to bring ivory to buy
the charm that could draw lightning down. When it was afterwards
attempted to force a path, they darted aside on seeing the Banyamwezi's
followers putting the arrows into the bowstrings, but stood in mute
amazement looking at the guns, which mowed them down in large numbers.
They thought that muskets were the insignia of chieftainship. Their
chiefs all go with a long straight staff of rattan, having a quantity of
black medicine smeared on each end, and no weapons in their hands: they