The authorities of the Congo Free State had informed us that we could take possession of any plot of land in the district that we cared to select. We did not, however, believe in accepting from a State that which they had no moral right to give, but in buying from the people the ground _they only_ had a right to sell us for our station. A few hours after our return to Monsembe we measured out a piece of land one hundred paces along the river front by three hundred paces deep, and said that in the morning we would buy it of them. Next morning at six o’clock we found a large crowd gathered to witness the novel transaction of buying and selling land. They formed a motley assemblage. Most of the men had two or more spears gripped tightly in their hands, and broad-bladed, ugly knives of various shapes were strapped in sheaths around their chests with the handles level with the breast-bone. Some wore gaudy cloths, while others had bark-cloth or rags that scarcely covered their nakedness. The women were dressed in petticoats made from palm fibres, and these fringes were so numerous and short that the wearers had every appearance of black ballet girls. Their faces were streaked with different coloured pigments, or dusted with camwood powder; and their bodies were rubbed with palm-oil. Beneath the paint, the powder, and the grease one found agreeable faces often lit up with really pleasant smiles. We asked them how much they wanted for the piece of land, and without hesitation they replied, “Five thousand brass rods.” “No,” we said, “we cannot pay you so large a sum as that, but we will give you one thousand rods now, and another five hundred in six months’ time, if you behave yourselves.” The head-men consulted apart for a time, and then their spokesman said: “We will accept your offer of one thousand rods now and another five hundred in six months’ time, if you will put on top some bottles, some knives, spoons, tin plates, looking-glasses, forks, cowries, beads, cloth, fish-hooks,” etc. etc., in fact samples of everything they had either ever heard about or could recall to mind at so short a notice. Unfortunately for them we had not such a variety of barter goods as they demanded, and we frankly told them so; but we promised to add some of the articles we did have with us. We cut and counted out the thousand rods,[5] tied them up in bundles of one hundred each, and then raked out two empty pickle bottles from our store and, putting some fathoms of cloth, a packet of brass chair nails, a few iron spoons, some trade knives, a dozen zinc-framed looking-glasses, a few empty meat tins, the ground became the property of our Society for about 38s. worth of goods, reckoning them at invoice price. Footnote 5: