negocio” deterred from reprisals.  M. Pissot, our companion, was amarre by them for some weeks, and the most unpleasant part of his captivity was the stunning concert of songs and instruments kept up during the day to prevent his escaping by night.  The more sensible traders at Boma pay them black mail by employing them as boats’ crews, upon our Anglo-Indian principle of the “Paggi” and the “Ramosi.”

Merolla calls these men Musilongo or Sonhese.  The word appears to me opprobrious, as if each tribe termed itself Mushi-Congo (Congo people), and its neighbours Musulungus:  Barbot writes as a Frenchman Moutsie, the Portuguese Muxi (Mushi).  Mushi-Longo would perhaps mean Loango-people; but my ear could not detect any approach to “Loango” in “Musulungu.”  The first syllable, Mu, in Fiote or Congoese, would be a contraction of Muntu (plural Wantu).  They inhabit the islands, own a part of the north bank, and extend southwards to Ambriz:  eastward they are bounded by the Fiote or Congo-speaking peoples, to whom their tongue is intelligible.  They have no tattoo, but they pierce the nose septum and extract the two central and upper incisors; the Muxi-Congoes or Lower Congoese chip or file out a chevron in the near sides of the same teeth—­ an ornament possibly suggested by the weight of the native pipe.  The chipping and extracting seem to be very arbitrary and liable to change:  sometimes the upper, at other times the lower teeth are operated upon.  The fashionable mutilation is frequently seen in Eastern Africa, and perhaps it is nothing but a fashion.  They are the “kallistoi” and “megistoi” of the Congoese bodies, taller and darker, fiercer and braver than their neighbours, nor will they cease to be river pirates till the illicit trade dies.

After taking leave of Sr.  Silva we resumed our way, the thermometer (F.) showing at 1.45 P.M. 95deg. in the air when the sun was obscured, and the mirage played the usual fantastic tricks.  The mangrove, which Tuckey’s introduction prolongs to fifty miles from the mouth, now disappears; in fact, it does not extend much above Bullock Island, nineteen direct miles on the chart from Shark Point and, as usual, it enables us to measure the extreme limit where the salt-tide ascends.  The palhabote went gallantly,

               “The water round her bows
          Dancing as round a drinking cup.”

Small trembling waves poppled and frothed in mid-stream, where the fresh water met wind and tide; and by the “boiling” of the surface we saw that there was still a strong under-current flowing against the upper layer.  A little beyond the factory we were shown on the northern bank Mariquita Nook, where the slaver of that name, commanded by a Captain Bowen, had shipped some 520 men.  She was captured by H.M.  Steamship “Zebra,” Commander Hoskins, after being reported by a chief, whom her captain had kicked, to a trader at the river mouth, and by him to the cruizer.  Slavers used to show