The adults as a rule came into the slave-sticks from treachery, and had never been slaves before. Very often the Arabs would promise a present of dried fish to villagers if they would act as guides to some distant point, and as soon as they were far enough away from their friends they were seized and pinned into the yoke from which there is no escape. These poor fellows would expire in the way the Doctor mentions, talking to the last of their wives and children who would never know what had become of them. On one occasion twenty captives succeeded in escaping as follows. Chained together by the neck, and in the custody of an Arab armed with a gun, they were sent off to collect wood; at a given signal, one of them called the guard to look at something which he pretended he had found: when he stooped down they threw themselves upon him and overpowered him, and after he was dead managed to break the chain and make off in all directions.] Rice sown on 19th October was in ear in seventy days. A leopard killed my goat, and a gun set for him went off at 10 P.M.--the ball broke both hind legs and one fore leg, yet he had power to spring up and bite a man badly afterwards; he was a male, 2 feet 4 inches at withers, and 6 feet 8 inches from tip of nose to end of tail. _1st January, 1871._--O Father! help me to finish this work to Thy honour. Still detained at Bambarré, but a caravan of 500 muskets is reported from the coast: it may bring me other men and goods. Rain daily. A woman was murdered without cause close by the camp; the murderer said she was a witch and speared her: the body is exposed till the affair is settled, probably by a fine of goats. The Manyuema are the most bloody, callous savages I know; one puts a scarlet feather from a parrot's tail on the ground, and challenges those near to stick it in the hair: he who does so must kill a man or woman! Another custom is that none dare wear the skin of the musk cat, Ngawa, unless he has murdered somebody: guns alone prevent them from killing us all, and for no reason either. _16th January, 1871._--Ramadân ended last night, and it is probable my people and others from the coast will begin to travel after three days of feasting. It has been so rainy I could have done little though I had had people. _22nd January, 1871._--A party is reported to be on the way hither. This is likely enough, but reports are so often false that doubts arise. Mohamad says he will give men when the party of Hassani comes, or when Dugumbé arrives.