During these exciting scenes I always forgot my fever, but a terrible sense of sinking came back with the feeling of safety. The same demand of payment for leave to pass was made on the 20th by old Ionga Panza as by the other Chiboque. I offered the shell presented by Shinte, but Ionga Panza said he was too old for ornaments. We might have succeeded very well with him, for he was by no means unreasonable, and had but a very small village of supporters; but our two guides from Kangenke complicated our difficulties by sending for a body of Bangala traders, with a view to force us to sell the tusks of Sekeletu, and pay them with the price. We offered to pay them handsomely if they would perform their promise of guiding us to Cassange, but they knew no more of the paths than we did; and my men had paid them repeatedly, and tried to get rid of them, but could not. They now joined with our enemies, and so did the traders. Two guns and some beads belonging to the latter were standing in our encampment, and the guides seized them and ran off. As my men knew that we should be called upon to replace them, they gave chase, and when the guides saw that they would be caught, they threw down the guns, directed their flight to the village, and rushed into a hut. The doorway is not much higher than that of a dog's kennel. One of the guides was reached by one of my men as he was in the act of stooping to get in, and a cut was inflicted on a projecting part of the body which would have made any one in that posture wince. The guns were restored, but the beads were lost in the flight. All I had remaining of my stock of beads could not replace those lost; and though we explained that we had no part in the guilt of the act, the traders replied that we had brought the thieves into the country; these were of the Bangala, who had been accustomed to plague the Portuguese in the most vexatious way. We were striving to get a passage through the country, and, feeling anxious that no crime whatever should be laid to our charge, tried the conciliatory plan here, though we were not, as in the other instances, likely to be overpowered by numbers.
My men offered all their ornaments, and I offered all my beads and shirts; but, though we had come to the village against our will, and the guides had also followed us contrary to our desire, and had even sent for the Bangala traders without our knowledge or consent, yet matters could not be arranged without our giving an ox and one of the tusks. We were all becoming disheartened, and could not wonder that native expeditions from the interior to the coast had generally failed to reach their destinations. My people were now so much discouraged that some proposed to return home; the prospect of being obliged to return when just on the threshold of the Portuguese settlements distressed me exceedingly. After using all my powers of persuasion, I declared to them that if they returned I would go on alone, and went into my little tent with the mind directed to Him who hears the sighing of the soul, and was soon followed by the head of Mohorisi, saying, "We will never leave you. Do not be disheartened. Wherever you lead we will follow. Our remarks were made only on account of the injustice of these people." Others followed, and with the most artless simplicity of manner told me to be comforted--"they were all my children; they knew no one but Sekeletu and me, and they would die for me; they had not fought because I did not wish it; they had just spoken in the bitterness of their spirit, and when feeling that they could do nothing; but if these enemies begin you will see what we can do." One of the oxen we offered to the Chiboque had been rejected because he had lost part of his tail, as they thought that it had been cut off and witchcraft medicine inserted; and some mirth was excited by my proposing to raise a similar objection to all the oxen we still had in our possession. The remaining four soon presented a singular shortness of their caudal extremities, and though no one ever asked whether they had medicine in the stumps or no, we were no more troubled by the demand for an ox! We now slaughtered another ox, that the spectacle might not be seen of the owners of the cattle fasting while the Chiboque were feasting.