Our friends informed us that Shinte would be highly honored by the presence of three white men in his town at once.  Two others had sent forward notice of their approach from another quarter (the west); could it be Barth or Krapf?  How pleasant to meet with Europeans in such an out-of-the-way region!  The rush of thoughts made me almost forget my fever.  Are they of the same color as I am?  “Yes; exactly so.”  And have the same hair?  “Is that hair? we thought it was a wig; we never saw the like before; this white man must be of the sort that lives in the sea.”  Henceforth my men took the hint, and always sounded my praises as a true specimen of the variety of white men who live in the sea.  “Only look at his hair; it is made quite straight by the sea-water!”

I explained to them again and again that, when it was said we came out of the sea, it did not mean that we came from beneath the water; but the fiction has been widely spread in the interior by the Mambari that the real white men live in the sea, and the myth was too good not to be taken advantage of by my companions; so, notwithstanding my injunctions, I believe that, when I was out of hearing, my men always represented themselves as led by a genuine merman:  “Just see his hair!” If I returned from walking to a little distance, they would remark of some to whom they had been holding forth, “These people want to see your hair.”

As the strangers had woolly hair like themselves, I had to give up the idea of meeting any thing more European than two half-caste Portuguese, engaged in trading for slaves, ivory, and bees’-wax.

16Th.  After a short march we came to a most lovely valley about a mile and a half wide, and stretching away eastward up to a low prolongation of Monakadzi.  A small stream meanders down the centre of this pleasant green glen; and on a little rill, which flows into it from the western side, stands the town of Kabompo, or, as he likes best to be called, Shinte. (Lat. 12d 37’ 35” S., long. 22d 47’ E.) When Manenko thought the sun was high enough for us to make a lucky entrance, we found the town embowered in banana and other tropical trees having great expansion of leaf; the streets are straight, and present a complete contrast to those of the Bechuanas, which are all very tortuous.  Here, too, we first saw native huts with square walls and round roofs.  The fences or walls of the courts which surround the huts are wonderfully straight, and made of upright poles a few inches apart, with strong grass or leafy bushes neatly woven between.  In the courts were small plantations of tobacco, and a little solanaceous plant which the Balonda use as a relish; also sugar-cane and bananas.  Many of the poles have grown again, and trees of the ‘Ficus Indica’ family have been planted around, in order to give to the inhabitants a grateful shade:  they regard this tree with some sort of veneration as a medicine or charm.  Goats were browsing about, and, when we made our appearance, a crowd of negroes, all fully armed, ran toward us as if they would eat us up; some had guns, but the manner in which they were held showed that the owners were more accustomed to bows and arrows than to white men’s weapons.  After surrounding and staring at us for an hour, they began to disperse.