After the more serious business was over, I asked if he had ever seen a white man before.  He replied, “Never; you are the very first I have seen with a white skin and straight hair; your clothing, too, is different from any we have ever seen.”  They had been visited by native Portuguese and Mambari only.

On learning from some of the people that “Shinte’s mouth was bitter for want of tasting ox-flesh,” I presented him with an ox, to his great delight; and, as his country is so well adapted for cattle, I advised him to begin a trade in cows with the Makololo.  He was pleased with the idea, and when we returned from Loanda, we found that he had profited by the hint, for he had got three, and one of them justified my opinion of the country, for it was more like a prize heifer for fatness than any we had seen in Africa.  He soon afterward sent us a basket of green maize boiled, another of manioc-meal, and a small fowl.  The maize shows by its size the fertility of the black soil of all the valleys here, and so does the manioc, though no manure is ever applied.  We saw manioc attain a height of six feet and upward, and this is a plant which requires the very best soil.

During this time Manenko had been extremely busy with all her people in getting up a very pretty hut and court-yard, to be, as she said, her residence always when white men were brought by her along the same path.  When she heard that we had given an ox to her uncle, she came forward to us with the air of one wronged, and explained that “this white man belonged to her; she had brought him here, and therefore the ox was hers, not Shinte’s.”  She ordered her men to bring it, got it slaughtered by them, and presented her uncle with a leg only.  Shinte did not seem at all annoyed at the occurrence.

19Th.  I was awakened at an early hour by a messenger from Shinte; but the thirst of a raging fever being just assuaged by the bursting forth of a copious perspiration, I declined going for a few hours.  Violent action of the heart all the way to the town did not predispose me to be patient with the delay which then occurred, probably on account of the divination being unfavorable:  “They could not find Shinte.”  When I returned to bed, another message was received, “Shinte wished to say all he had to tell me at once.”  This was too tempting an offer, so we went, and he had a fowl ready in his hand to present, also a basket of manioc-meal, and a calabash of mead.  Referring to the constantly-recurring attacks of fever, he remarked that it was the only thing which would prevent a successful issue to my journey, for he had men to guide me who knew all the paths which led to the white men.  He had himself traveled far when a young man.  On asking what he would recommend for the fever, “Drink plenty of the mead, and as it gets in, it will drive the fever out.”  It was rather strong, and I suspect he liked the remedy pretty well, even though he had no fever.  He had always been a friend