halt.  The “gentlemen” were in full travelling costume.  Slung by a thong to the chief guide’s left shoulder were a tiger-cat skin, cardamom-sheaths and birds’ beaks and claws clustering round a something in shape like the largest German sausage, the whole ruddled with ochre:  this charm must not be touched by the herd; a slave-lad, having unwittingly offended, knelt down whilst the wearer applied a dusty big toe between his eyebrows.  Papagayo had a bag of grass-cloth and bits of cane, from which protruded strips of leather and scarlet broadcloth.

At 6.45 A.M. on Saturday, September 12, we exchanged the fields surrounding Banza Chinguvu for a ridge or narrow plateau trending to the north-east and bending to the magnetic north.  A few minutes led to a rock-slope, fit only for goat-hoofs or nude-footed natives.  Winding along the hill-sides, we passed out of the Nokki territory into that of Ntombo, the property of Mfumo Nelongo:  here we descended into a little vale or gorge bright as verdure could make it—­

                   “arborets and flowers
          Imborder’d on each bank”

of a bubbling brook, a true naiad of the hills, which ran to the embrace of the mighty stream; it characteristically stained its bed with iron.  On our right was a conspicuous landmark, Zululu ke Sombe, a tall rock bearing the semblance of an elephant from the north-east, visible from the Congo’s right bank and commanding a view of all the hills.  Banza Vivi, our first destination, perching high on the farther side of the blue depression, bore due north.  We then struck the roughest of descents, down broken outcrops and chines of granite—­no wonder that the women have such grand legs.  This led us into a dark green depression where lay Banza Chinsavu, the abode of King Nelongo.  Our course had been three miles to the north-north-east.

Nothing can be more charming than the site, a small horseshoe valley, formed by a Wady or Fiumara, upon whose raised left bank stands the settlement, sheltered by palms, plantations, and wild figs.  Eastward is a slope of bare rock polished by the rain-torrents; westward rise the grassy hills variegated with bush and boulder.  We next crossed a rocky divide to the north and found a second basin also fertilized by its own stream; here the cactus and aloes, the vegetation of the desert, contrasted with half-a-dozen shades of green, the banana, the sycamore, the egg-plant, the sweet potato, the wild pepper, and the grass, whose colours were paling, but not so rapidly as in the lower lands.

We dismounted in state from our tipoias at the verandah of an empty house, where a chair had been placed; and we prepared for the usual delay and display.  The guides will not leave these villages unvisited lest a “war” result; all the chiefs are cousins and one must not monopolize the plunder.  A great man takes an hour to dress, and Nelongo was evidently soothing the toils of the toilette with