“Oh, you will not forget your debts,” they replied; “and if there were any fear of that we should not even then accept your books, but should refuse to let you have the food without the money.” “Why will you not take our books, then?” we again asked in amazement. “Well,” they said, “if we were to accept your books, and put them in our houses, no rain would fall on our farms, and we should all be starved to death.” Argue as we would, we could not move them from their superstitious position in relation to our poor little pieces of paper. By that time they knew our intentions towards them were good, or they would not have trusted us with their fowls, eggs, plantain, and native bread without receiving the barter goods at once, yet they were afraid of the evil effects our “books” would have on their farms. They thought the magic was in the “book,” and in spite of our good motives that that magic would work against them directly the “books” had passed from us into their possession. While the “books” were in our house we controlled or nullified their evil magic, but when they had passed out of our hands we had no further power over their wicked forces, and the natives were afraid of not being able to counteract their _black art_, hence their continued refusal to accept them. It was a curious belief that obsessed them: that men who they firmly believed were kindly disposed towards them should yet have in their possession such “books” as would work mischief to those for whom they had nothing but friendly feelings. We therefore entered their names in a notebook as we bought the food supplies, and thus keeping an account of what money we owed, and to whom, we were able to settle our accounts with them at a later date. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER III STRUGGLES WITH THE LANGUAGE “Trade” and “Bangala” languages—Making a vocabulary—Housekeeper and master of works—Natives tell us words—Elements of difficulty—Glib translations—Natives deceive us—Head-men offer us wines—We are a conundrum to our neighbours—Confidence gained at last—Collect nearly seven thousand root words—A mode of making derivations—Native figures of speech. On the main river there was a mixed language, commonly called among us the “trade language”; by means of this _lingua franca_ we were able to make ourselves understood at the various places at which we touched on our search for a new site, and it stood us in good stead during our early days among the Monsembe people. There was a large element of Bobangi in it, some Kiswahili words, and a few Lower Congo words and phrases. This “trade language” has now been supplanted by what is called the “Bangala language,” which is a mixture of the languages already mentioned, with a smattering of Bangala words thrown in.