to an inner apartment, where the articles of my present were exhibited in detail.  He had examined them privately before, and we knew that he was satisfied.  They consisted of eight yards of orange-coloured serge, a large striped tablecloth; another large cloth made at Manchester in imitation of West Coast native manufacture, which never fails to excite the admiration of Arabs and natives, and a large richly gilded comb for the back hair, such as ladies wore fifty years ago:  this was given to me by a friend at Liverpool, and as Casembe and Nsama’s people cultivate the hair into large knobs behind, I was sure that this article would tickle the fancy.  Casembe expressed himself pleased, and again bade me welcome.

I had another interview, and tried to dissuade him from selling his people as slaves.  He listened awhile, then broke off into a tirade on the greatness of his country, his power and dominion, which Mohamad bin Saleh, who has been here for ten years, turned into ridicule, and made the audience laugh by telling how other Lunda chiefs had given me oxen and sheep, while Casembe had only a poor little goat and some fish to bestow.  He insisted also that there were but two sovereigns in the world, the Sultan of Zanzibar and Victoria.  When we went on a third occasion to bid Casembe farewell, he was much less distant, and gave me the impression that I could soon become friends with him; but he has an ungainly look, and an outward squint in each eye.  A number of human skulls adorned the entrance to his courtyard; and great numbers of his principal men having their ears cropped, and some with their hands lopped off, showed his barbarous way of making his ministers attentive and honest.  I could not avoid indulging a prejudice against him.

The Portuguese visited Casembe long ago; but as each new Casembe builds a new town, it is not easy to fix on the exact spot to which strangers came.  The last seven Casembes have had their towns within seven miles of the present one.  Dr. Lacerda, Governor of Tette, on the Zambesi, was the only visitor of scientific attainments, and he died at the rivulet called Chungu, three or four miles from this.  The spot is called Nshinda, or Inchinda, which the Portuguese wrote Lucenda or Ucenda.  The latitude given is nearly fifty miles wrong, but the natives say that he lived only ten days after his arrival, and if, as is probable, his mind was clouded with fever when he last observed, those who have experienced what that is will readily excuse any mistake he may have made.  His object was to accomplish a much-desired project of the Portuguese to have an overland communication between their eastern and western possessions.  This was never made by any of the Portuguese nation; but two black traders succeeded partially with a part of the distance, crossing once from Cassange, in Angola, to Tette on the Zambesi, and returning with a letter from the Governor of Mosambique.