skirmish referred to, I can go from Mokamba to Rumanyika, three or four or more days distant, and get guides from him to lead me back to the main river beyond Loanda, and by this plan only three days of the stream will be passed over unvisited.  Thani would evidently like to receive the payment, but without securing to me the object for which I pay.  He is a poor thing, a slaveling:  Syed Majid, Sheikh Suleiman, and Koroje, have all written to him, urging an assisting deportment in vain:  I never see him but he begs something, and gives nothing, I suppose he expects me to beg from him.  I shall be guided by Moeneghere.

I cannot find anyone who knows where the outflow of the unvisited Lake S.W. of this goes; some think that it goes to the Western Ocean, or, I should say, the Congo.  Mohamad Bogharib goes in a month to Manyuema, but if matters turn out as I wish, I may explore this Tanganyika line first.  One who has been in Manyuema three times, and was of the first party that ever went there, says that the Manyuema are not cannibals, but a tribe west of them eats some parts of the bodies of those slain in war.  Some people south of Moenekuss[5], chief of Manyuema, build strong clay houses.

22nd June, 1869.—­After listening to a great deal of talk I have come to the conclusion that I had better not go with Moeneghere’s people to Mokamba.  I see that it is to be a mulcting, as in Speke’s case:  I am to give largely, though I am not thereby assured of getting down the river.  They say, “You must give much, because you are a great man:  Mokamba will say so”—­though Mokamba knows nothing about me!  It is uncertain whether I can get down through by Loanda, and great risk would be run in going to those who cut off the party of Moeneghere, so I have come to the conclusion that it will be better for me to go to Manyuema about a fortnight hence, and, if possible, trace down the western arm of the Nile to the north—­if this arm is indeed that of the Nile, and not of the Congo.  Nobody here knows anything about it, or, indeed, about the eastern or Tanganyika line either; they all confess that they have but one question in their minds in going anywhere, they ask for ivory and for nothing else, and each trip ends as a foray.  Moeneghere’s last trip ended disastrously, twenty-six of his men being cut off; in extenuation he says that it was not his war but Mokamba’s:  he wished to be allowed to go down through Loanda, and as the people in front of Mokamba and Usige own his supremacy, he said, “Send your force with mine and let us open the way,” so they went on land and were killed.  An attempt was made to induce Syde bin Habib to clear the way, and be paid in ivory, but Syde likes to battle with those who will soon run away and leave the spoil to him.