Sunday, April 2D.  We rested beside a small stream, and our hunger being now very severe, from having lived on manioc alone since leaving Ionza Panza’s, we slaughtered one of our four remaining oxen.  The people of this district seem to feel the craving for animal food as much as we did, for they spend much energy in digging large white larvae out of the damp soil adjacent to their streams, and use them as a relish to their vegetable diet.  The Bashinje refused to sell any food for the poor old ornaments my men had now to offer.  We could get neither meal nor manioc, but should have been comfortable had not the Bashinje chief Sansawe pestered us for the customary present.  The native traders informed us that a display of force was often necessary before they could pass this man.

Sansawe, the chief of a portion of the Bashinje, having sent the usual formal demand for a man, an ox, or a tusk, spoke very contemptuously of the poor things we offered him instead.  We told his messengers that the tusks were Sekeletu’s:  every thing was gone except my instruments, which could be of no use to them whatever.  One of them begged some meat, and, when it was refused, said to my men, “You may as well give it, for we shall take all after we have killed you to-morrow.”  The more humbly we spoke, the more insolent the Bashinje became, till at last we were all feeling savage and sulky, but continued to speak as civilly as we could.  They are fond of argument, and when I denied their right to demand tribute from a white man, who did not trade in slaves, an old white-headed negro put rather a posing question:  “You know that God has placed chiefs among us whom we ought to support.  How is it that you, who have a book that tells you about him, do not come forward at once to pay this chief tribute like every one else?” I replied by asking, “How could I know that this was a chief, who had allowed me to remain a day and a half near him without giving me any thing to eat?” This, which to the uninitiated may seem sophistry, was to the Central Africans quite a rational question, for he at once admitted that food ought to have been sent, and added that probably his chief was only making it ready for me, and that it would come soon.

After being wearied by talking all day to different parties sent by Sansawe, we were honored by a visit from himself:  he is quite a young man, and of rather a pleasing countenance.  There can not have been much intercourse between real Portuguese and these people even here, so close to the Quango, for Sansawe asked me to show him my hair, on the ground that, though he had heard of it, and some white men had even passed through his country, he had never seen straight hair before.  This is quite possible, as most of the slave-traders are not Portuguese, but half-castes.  The difference between their wool and our hair caused him to burst into a laugh, and the contrast between the exposed and unexposed parts