We left the quitanda with the same shouting and rushing which accompanied my appearance.

Chapter XV.

Return to the Congo Mouth.

In the evening there was a palaver.

I need hardly say that my guide, after being paid to show me Nsundi, never had the slightest intention to go beyond the Yellala.  Irritated by sleeping in the open air, and by the total want of hospitality amongst the bushmen, he and his moleques had sat apart all day, the picture of stubborn discontent, and

                    “Not a man in the place
          But had discontent written large in his face.”

I proposed to send back a party for rum, powder, and cloth to the extent of L150, or half the demand, and my factotum, Selim, behaved like a trump.  Gidi Mavunga, quite beyond self-control, sprang up, and declared that, if the Mundele would not follow him, that obstinate person might remain behind.  The normal official deprecation, as usual, made him the more headstrong; he rushed off and disappeared in the bush, followed by a part of his slaves, the others crying aloud to him, “Wenda!”—­ get out!  Seeing that the three linguisters did not move, he presently returned, and after a furious address in Fiote began a Portuguese tirade for my benefit.  This white man had come to their country, and, instead of buying captives, was bent upon enslaving their Mfumos; but that “Branco” should suffer for his attempt; no “Mukanda” or book (that is, letter) should go down stream; all his goods belonged of right to his guide, and thus he would learn to sit upon the heads of the noblesse, with much of the same kind.

There are times when the traveller either rises above or sinks to the level of, or rather below, his party.  I had been sitting abstractedly, like the great quietist, Buddha, when the looks of the assembly suggested an “address.”  This was at once delivered in Portuguese, with a loud and angry voice.  Gidi Mavunga, who had been paid for Nsundi, not for the Yellala, had spoken like a “small boy” (i.e., a chattel).  I had no wish to sit upon other men’s heads, but no man should sit on mine.  Englishmen did not want slaves, nor would they allow others to want them, but they would not be made slaves themselves.  My goods were my own, and King Nessala, not to speak of Mambuco Prata—­the name told—­had made themselves responsible for me.  Lastly, if the Senhor Gidi Mafung wanted to quarrel, the contents of a Colt’s six-shooter were at his disposal.

Such a tone would have made a European furious; it had a contrary effect upon the African.  Gidi Mavunga advanced from his mat, and taking my hand placed it upon his head, declaring me his “Mwenemputo.”  The linguisters then entered the circle, chanted sundry speeches, made little dances, then bent their knuckles to earth, much in the position of boys preparing to jump over their own joined hands, dusted themselves,