posing that he would run away, he made great signs of fidelity, and with his own hands tied a rope about his neck, offering me one end of it, intimating that I should hang him if the man did not come again. So I consented, and he gave him abundance of instructions, and sent him away, pointing to the light of the sun, which it seems was to tell him at what time he must be back.

The fellow ran as if he was mad, and held it till he was quite out of sight, by which I supposed he had a great way to go. The next morning, about two hours before the time appointed, the black prince, for so I always called him, beckoning with his hand to me, and hallooing after his manner, desired me to come to him, which I did, when pointing to a little hill about two miles off, I saw plainly a little drove of cattle, and several people with them; those he told me by signs were the man he had sent, and several more with him, and cattle for us.

Accordingly, by the time appointed, he came quite to our huts, and brought with him a great many cows, young runts, about sixteen goats, and four young bulls, taught to carry burthens.

CHAPTER V.

WE SET OUT ON OUR MARCH-GREAT USE OF THE BULLS OF THE COUNTRY, AS BEASTS OF BURTHEN-MANNER OF SAILING TWO HUNDRED MILES, IN A GREAT RIVER, UP THE COUNTRY-WE ARE STOPPED BY A PRODIGIOUS CATARACT -OUR GUNNER SHOOTS A FINE LEOPARD, TO THE GREAT TERROR AND ASTONISHMENT OF OUR NEGROES-MANNER OF PROCEEDING AFTER LEAVING OUR BARK-DANGEROUS ENCOUNTER WITH SAVAGES.

THIS was a supply of provisions sufficient; as for bread, we were obliged to shift with some roots which we had made use of before. We then began to consider of making some large bags like the soldiers' knapsacks, for their men to carry our baggage in, and to make it easy to them; and the goats being killed, I ordered the skins to be spread in the sun, and they were as dry in two days as could be desired; so we found means to make such little bags as we wanted, and be

SET OUT ON THEIR MARCH.

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gan to divide our baggage into them: when the black prince found what they were for, and how easy they were of carriage when we put them on, he smiled a little, and sent away the man again to fetch skins, and he brought two natives more with him, all loaded with skins better cured than ours, and of other kinds, such as we could not tell what names to give them.

These two men brought the black prince two lances, of the sort they use in their fights, but finer than ordinary, being made of black smooth wood, as fine as ebony, and headed at the point with the end of a long tooth of some creature, we could not tell of what creature; the head was so firm put on, and the tooth so strong, though no bigger than my thumb, and sharp at the end, that I never saw anything like it in any place in the world.

The prince would not take them till I gave him leave, but made signs that they should give them to me: however, I gave him leave to take them himself, for I saw evident signs of an honourable just principle in him.

We now prepared for our march, when the prince coming to me, and pointing towards the several quarters of the world, made signs to know which way we intended to go; and when I showed him, pointing to the west, he presently let me know there was a great river a little further to the north, which was able to carry our bark many leagues into the country due west. I presently took the hint, and inquired for the mouth of the river, which I understood by him was above a day's march, and, by our estimation, we found it about seven leagues further. I take this to be the great river marked by our chart-makers, at the northmost part of the coast of Mozambique, and called there Quilloa.

Consulting thus with ourselves, we resolved to take the prince, and as many of the prisoners as we could stow in our frigate, and go about by the bay into the river; and that eight of us, with our arms, should march by land, to meet them on the river side; for the prince carrying us to a rising ground, had showed us the river very plain, a great way up the country; and in one place it was not above six miles to it.

It was my lot to march by land, and be captain of the whole caravar I had eight of our men with me, and seven and thirty of our prisoners without any baggage, for all our

luggage was yet on board. We drove the young bulls with us; nothing was ever so tame, so willing to work, or carry anything. The negroes would ride upon them four at a time, and they would go very willingly: they would eat out of our hand, lick our feet, and were as tractable as a dog.

We drove with us six or seven cows for food: but our negroes knew nothing of curing the flesh by salting and drying it, till we showed them the way, and then they were mighty willing to do so as long as we had any salt to do it with, and to carry salt a great way too, after we found we should have no more.

It was an easy march to the river side for us that went by land, and we came thither in a piece of a day, being, as above, no more than six English miles; whereas it was no less than five days before they came to us by water, the wind in the bay having failed them, and the way, by reason of a great turn or reach in the river, being above fifty miles about.

We spent this time, in a thing which the two strangers who brought the prince the two lances, put into the head of the prisoners, viz., to make bottles of the goats' skins to carry fresh water in, which it seems they knew we should come to want; and the men did it so dexterously, having dried skins fetched them by those two men, that before our vessel came up, they had every man a pouch like a bladder, to carry fresh water in, hanging over their shoulder by a thong made of other skins, about three inches broad, like the sling of a fusee.

Our prince, to assure us of the fidelity of the men in this march, had ordered them to be tied two and two by the wrist, as we handcuff prisoners in England; and made them so sensible of the reasonableness of it, that he made them do it themselves, appointing four of them to bind the rest; but we found them so honest, and particularly so obedient to him, that after we were gotten a little further from their own country, we set them at liberty, though, when he came to us, he would have them tied again, and they continued so for a good while.

All the country on the bank of the river was a high land, no marshy swampy ground in it; the verdure good, and abundance of cattle feeding upon it wherever we went, or which way soever we looked; there was not much wood, indeed, at least not near us; but further up we saw oak, cedar, and pine trees, some of which were very large.

A PRODIGIOUS CATARACT.

59

The river was a fair open channel about a broad as the Thames, below Gravesend, and a strong tide of flood, which we found held us about sixty miles, the channel deep; nor did we find any want of water for a great way. In short, we went merrily up the river with the flood and the wind blowing still fresh at E. and E.N.E.; we stemmed the ebb easily also, especially while the river continued broad and deep; but when we came past the swelling of the tide, and had the natural current of the river to go against, we found it too strong for us, and began to think of quitting our bark: but the prince would by no means agree to that, for, finding we had on board pretty good store of roping made of mats and flags, which I described before, he ordered all the prisoners which were on shore to come and take hold of those ropes, and tow us along by the shore side; and as we hoisted our sail too, to ease them, the men ran along with us at a very great rate.

In this manner the river carried us up, by our computation, near two hundred miles, and then it narrowed apace, and was not above as broad as the Thames is at Windsor, or thereabouts; and after another day, we came to a great waterfall or cataract, enough to frighten us, for I believe the whole body of water fell at once perpendicularly down a precipice above sixty feet high, which made noise enough to deprive men of their hearing, and we heard it above ten miles before we came to it.

Here we were at a full stop, and now our prisoners went first on shore; they had worked very hard, and very cheerfully, relieving one another, those that were weary being taken into the bark. Had we had canoes, or any boats which might have been carried by men's strength, we might have gone two hundred miles more up this river in small boats; but our great boat could go no further.

All this way the country looked green and pleasant, and was full of cattle, and some people we saw, though not many; but this we observed now, that the people did no more understand our prisoners here than we could understand them, being, it seems, of different nations, and of different speech. We had yet seen no wild beasts, or at least none that came very near us, except two days before we came at the waterfall, when we saw three of the most beautiful leopards that ever were seen, standing upon the

bank of the river on the north side, our prisoners being all on the other side of the water. Our gunner espied them first, and ran to fetch his gun, putting a ball extraordinary in it; and coming to me, Now, Captain Bob, says he, where is your prince? So I called him out. Now, says he, tell your men not to be afraid; tell them they shall see that thing in his hand speak in fire to one of those beasts, and make it kill itself.

The poor negroes looked as if they had been all going to be killed, notwithstanding what their prince said to them, and stood staring to expect the issue, when on a sudden the gunner fired; and, as he was a very good marksman, he shot the creature with two slugs just in the head. As soon as the leopard felt herself struck, she reared up on her two hind-legs, bolt upright, and throwing her fore-paws about in the air, fell backward, growling and struggling, and immediately died; the other two, frightened with the fire and the noise, fled, and were out of sight in an instant.

But the two frightened leopards were not in half the consternation that our prisoners were: four or five of them fell down as if they had been shot, several others fell on their knees, and lifted up their hands to us—whether to worship us or pray us not to kill them we did not know; but we made signs to their prince to encourage them, which he did, but it was with much ado that he brought them to their sense. Nay, the prince, notwithstanding all that was said to prepare him for it, yet, when the piece went off, he gave a start as if he would have leaped into the river.

The

When we saw the creature killed, I had a great mind to have the skin of her, and made signs to the prince that he should send some of his men over to take the skin off. As soon as he spoke but a word, four of them that offered themselves were untied, and immediately they jumped into the river, and swam over, and went to work with him. prince, having a knife that we gave him, made four wooden knives so clever that I never saw anything like them in my life; and in less than an hour's time they brought me the skin of the leopard, which was a monstrous great one, for it was from the ears to the tail about seven feet, and near five feet broad on the back, and most admirably spotted all over. The skin of this leopard I brought to London many years after.