Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/275

Rh small extent, but noticeable as the home of a lake tribe, who build on piles. There does not seem to be any particular reason why they should live in this manner, for, though distrustful of strangers, they are on friendly terms with the dwellers on the shore; but they had a monopoly of the canoes, and declined to let the white man come near them.

As Kasongo was still away when he got back from this excursion, he was allowed to make another to Lake Kassali, through which flows one of the main branches of the Lualaba; and it is to this, and the information collected during his tedious detention at Kilemba, that we owe not only the very important contributions to our geographical knowledge of this remarkable river system, but a most interesting and valuable account of the vast territory of Urua, extending over some one hundred thousand square miles, and subject to Kasongo, a chief to whom the sense of absolute power has given perhaps a certain dignity, and whose relative wealth permits a certain degree of rude luxury, but who is described as a brutal, ignorant, and sensual savage.

When Kasongo at last returned, he was accompanied by Coimbra, a mongrel negro and slave-driver of the worst description, who was closely associated with Alvez in many atrocities connected with that loathsome trade, the horrors of which cannot be related without repeating a great part of the volumes now before us. It is enough to say, that after being detained at Kilemba for nearly nine months, and having endeavored in vain to get back to what he believed to be the line of the Congo, Cameron was at last compelled to start as the vassal, rather than the companion, of Alvez and the more bestial Coimbra; and from June, 1875, travelled with them in a south-westerly direction, through a country naturally rich and fertile, but devastated by the atrocities which he could not avoid witnessing, and which he was powerless to prevent. Nor was it till they reached Alvez's settlement in Bihé, that he was able to leave them, Alvez selling him, for bills at an extortionate rate, such stores as he was obliged to purchase.

From Bihé to the sea is less than two hundred miles, and it is worthy of notice that in this last short distance, over a route not unknown, Mr. Cameron incurred his most serious danger. His stores ran out, his people were exhausted, and on the point of dying of starvation. The situation was critical, and, as a last desperate resource, he determined to leave the bulk of his party, with all his possessions, except the instruments and journals; and, with a few picked men, make a forced march to the coast, from whence he could send back assistance; and in this way he did achieve safety and success.

Of his reception at Katombela and Benguella, as later on at Loanda and in England, it is needless here to speak: nor indeed does the limited space at our disposal permit us to do more than allude to the many interesting and important points which are related in detail by Lieutenant Cameron. Of these, the sketches that he gives of native customs are perhaps the most interesting, and his ideas of a possible traffic the most important. As closely connected with these are his contributions to the science of physical geography; and if in this article we have dwelt more fully on these geographical considerations, it is that they seem to us to influence the whole, and, as such, to have claims superior to all others, as tending, more than any other one set can do, to elucidate the great problems which the wishes of civilization and Christianity would propound.

 

   

, things were going rather badly at Portlossie and Scaurnose, and the factor was the devil of them. Those who had known him longest said he must be fey — that is doomed — so strangely altered was his behavior. Others said he took more counsel with his bottle than had been his wont, and got no good from it. Almost all the fishers found him surly, and upon some he broke out in violent rage, while to certain whom he regarded as Malcolm's special friends he carried himself with cruel oppression. The notice to leave at midsummer clouded the destiny of Joseph Mair and his family, and every householder in the two villages believed that to take them in would be to call down the like fate upon himself. But Meg Partan at least was not to be intimidated. Her outbursts of temper were but the hurricanes of a tropical heart — not much the less true and good and steadfast that it 