The ivory hunters at Ipoto--Their mode of proceeding--The Manyuema headmen and their raids--Remedy for preventing wholesale devastations--Crusade preached by Cardinal Lavigerie--Our Zanzibar chiefs--Anxiety respecting Captain Nelson and his followers--Our men sell their weapons for food--Theft of Rifles--Their return demanded--Uledi turns up with news of the missing chiefs--Contract drawn up with the Manyuema headmen for the relief of Captain Nelson--Jephson's report on his journey--Reports of Captain Nelson and Surgeon Parke--The process of blood brotherhood between myself and Ismaili--We leave Ipoto. This community of ivory hunters established at Ipoto had arrived, five months previous to our coming, from the banks of the Lualaba, from a point situated between the exits of the Lowwa and the Leopold into the great river. The journey had occupied them seven-and-a-half months, and they had seen neither grass nor open country, nor even heard of them during their wanderings. They had halted a month at Kinnena on the Lindi, and had built a station-house for their Chief Kilonga-Longa, who, when he had joined them with the main body, sent on about 200 guns and 200 slave carriers to strike further in a north-easterly direction, to discover some other prosperous settlement far in advance of him, whence they could sally out in bands to destroy, burn and enslave natives in exchange for ivory. Through continual fighting, and the carelessness which the unbalanced mind is so apt to fall into after one or more happy successes, they had decreased in number within seven-and-a-half months into a force of about ninety guns. On reaching the Lenda River they had heard of the settlements of Ugarrowwa, and sheered off the limits of his raiding circle to obtain a centre of their own, and, crossing the Lenda, they succeeded in reaching the south bank of the Ituri, about south of their present settlement at Ipoto.