This was the spot upon which Stanley desired to erect a trading station and these were the people with whom he was to negotiate for a possession. He had no fears of the result, for it was evident that the Arabs and the half-castes of Nyangwe, beyond, would find advantage in a station at which they could obtain cloth, guns, knives and all articles of European manufacture at a much cheaper rate than from the Eastern coast. A palaver was opened with the assembled chiefs, in which Stanley was formally received and stated his object. Receptions by African chiefs are always very formal. Altogether, they are not uninteresting. Livingstone mentions one with King Chitapangwa, in which he was ushered into an enormous hut where the dignitary sat before three drummers and ten more men with rattles in their hands. The drummers beat fearfully on their drums, and the rattlers kept time, two of them advancing and retreating in a stooping posture, with their rattles near the ground, as if doing the chief obeisance, but still keeping time with the others. After a debate of three days duration the chiefs came to terms and ceded sovereignty over the islands and adjacent shores, with the right to build and trade. The large island of Wané Rusari was selected as the site of the station and a clearing was made for building. The question of a supply of vegetable food was settled by Siwa-Siwa, an inland chief, who promised to make the garrison his children and guaranteed them plenty of garden products. Binnie, engineer of the _Royal_, a plucky little Scotchman of diminutive stature, was appointed chief of the new Stanley Falls Station, and left in full authority. The boat’s crews cleared four acres of ground for him, and furnished him with axes, hoes, hammers, nails, flour, meats, coffee, tea, sugar, cloths, rods, beads, mugs, pans, and all the etceteras of a mid-African equipment. He was given thirty one armed men and plenty of ammunition. Then with full instructions as to his duty he was left to the care of Providence. On December 10th the steamers began their return journey, having reached the full geographic limit marked out by the Brussels Committee. The return was to be signalized by obtaining the protectorship of the districts intervening between the stations thus far established on the Congo, so that the authority of the new State should be unbroken from Vivi to Stanley Falls. But this work, on second thought, could well be left to others with more time at their disposal than had Stanley. Therefore the steamers, taking advantage of the current, and bearing ten selected men of the native tribes about Stanley Falls, each in possession of three ivory tusks, made a speedy downward trip.