We found that every village had its idols near it. This is the case all through the country of the Balonda, so that, when we came to an idol in the woods, we always knew that we were within a quarter of an hour of human habitations. One very ugly idol we passed rested on a horizontal beam placed on two upright posts. This beam was furnished with two loops of cord, as of a chain, to suspend offerings before it. On remarking to my companions that these idols had ears, but that they heard not, etc., I learned that the Balonda, and even the Barotse, believe that divination may be performed by means of these blocks of wood and clay; and though the wood itself could not hear, the owners had medicines by which it could be made to hear and give responses, so that if an enemy were approaching they would have full information. Manenko having brought us to a stand on account of slight indisposition and a desire to send forward notice of our approach to her uncle, I asked why it was necessary to send forward information of our movements, if Shinte had idols who could tell him every thing. "She did it only,"* was the reply. It is seldom of much use to show one who worships idols the folly of idolatry without giving something else as an object of adoration instead. They do not love them. They fear them, and betake themselves to their idols only when in perplexity and danger.
* This is a curious African idiom, by which a person implies he had no particular reason for his act.
While delayed, by Manenko's management, among the Balonda villages, a little to the south of the town of Shinte, we were well supplied by the villagers with sweet potatoes and green maize; Sambanza went to his mother's village for supplies of other food. I was laboring under fever, and did not find it very difficult to exercise patience with her whims; but it being Saturday, I thought we might as well go to the town for Sunday (15th). "No; her messenger must return from her uncle first." Being sure that the answer of the uncle would be favorable, I thought we might go on at once, and not lose two days in the same spot. "No, it is our custom;" and every thing else I could urge was answered in the genuine pertinacious lady style. She ground some meal for me with her own hands, and when she brought it told me she had actually gone to a village and begged corn for the purpose. She said this with an air as if the inference must be drawn by even a stupid white man: "I know how to manage, don't I?" It was refreshing to get food which could be eaten without producing the unpleasantness described by the Rev. John Newton, of St. Mary's, Woolnoth, London, when obliged to eat the same roots while a slave in the West Indies. The day (January 14th), for a wonder, was fair, and the sun shone, so as to allow us to dry our clothing and other goods, many of which were mouldy and rotten from the long-continued damp. The guns rusted, in spite of being oiled every evening.
During the night we were all awakened by a terrific shriek from one of Manenko's ladies. She piped out so loud and long that we all imagined she had been seized by a lion, and my men snatched up their arms, which they always place so as to be ready at a moment's notice, and ran to the rescue; but we found the alarm had been caused by one of the oxen thrusting his head into her hut and smelling her: she had put her hand on his cold, wet nose, and thought it was all over with her.