A few days later as Bololi, the head-man who had given me the other goat, was passing across the station I called him into the house, and spreading out the goods identically the same as my colleague had offered to his head-man, I asked him to accept them as a token of our friendliness, etc., in return for his goat. He made some gestures expressive of his depreciation of the gift, and after a haggling attempt to procure an increase of goods, he, to my surprise in view of the action of Dintela, collected the articles, put them in his shoulder pouch, and went off apparently satisfied. The next day when we wanted to kill the goat it had disappeared, and we never again set eyes upon it. Dintela refused the goods and took his goat away; but evidently they had talked over the matter with the other men in the town, and the result was that Bololi accepted the articles and afterwards stole the goat, which in the eyes of the natives was much the smarter action of the two. After this, when head-men were too pressing in their offers of friendly presents, we related the story of the two goats, and it never failed to cure them of their fits of generosity. We found them at that time, as the above incident of the goats indicates, most inveterate thieves; but a few years later when three young men of the town broke into our store and stole goods to the value of sixteen thousand brass rods, the mass of the people arose in such indignation on learning the facts that they tied up the thieves, although they were free men and not slaves, and, bringing them to us ignominiously bound, laid them at our feet. And public opinion was so unmistakable in denouncing the act, that the young men and their families disgorged the whole of what they had stolen from us to the last brass rod. At first they absolutely refused to trust us even with the value of an egg—we had to put the price in their hands as we took the article; but gradually they became less suspicious of us. During the early months at Monsembe our steamer failed to arrive at the expected time, consequently our small supply of barter goods became exhausted; and to be without these articles of exchange in such a country was like being a foreigner in a strange land without money. Food, however, was necessary, both for ourselves and those dependent on us. We told the natives that our store was practically empty, and that we could not pay them then, but would do so when we received our goods from down-river. We offered them papers stating what we had bought, the price agreed upon, the date, and the seller’s name—a kind of promissory note which we promised to redeem on the arrival of our steamer. The natives said: “We will let you have the food supplies that you need, but we will not accept your books.” They called any piece of paper at that time a “book.” “Why will you not take our books?” we inquired; “for we may forget how much we owe, and to whom we owe it.”