_18th June, 1871._--Dugumbé arrived, but passed to Moené Nyañgwé's, and found that provisions were so scarce, and dear there, as compared with our market, that he was fain to come back to us. He has a large party and 500 guns. He is determined to go into new fields of trade, and has all his family with him, and intends to remain six or seven years, sending regularly to Ujiji for supplies of goods. _20th June, 1871._--Two of Dugumbé's party brought presents of four large fundos of beads each. All know that my goods are unrighteously detained by Shereef and they show me kindness, which I return by some fine calico which I have. Among the first words Dugumbé said to me were, "Why your own slaves are your greatest enemies: I will buy you a canoe, but the Banian slaves' slanders have put all the Manyuema against you." I knew that this was true, and that they were conscious of the sympathy of the Ujijian traders, who hate to have me here. _24th June, 1871._--Hassani's canoe party in the river were foiled by narrows, after they had gone down four days. Rocks jut out on both sides, not opposite, but alternate to each other; and the vast mass of water of the great river jammed in, rushes round one promontory on to another, and a frightful whirlpool is formed in which the first canoe went and was overturned, and five lives lost. Had I been there, mine would have been the first canoe, for the traders would have made it a point of honour to give me the precedence (although actually to make a feeler of me), while they looked on in safety. The men in charge of Hassani's canoes were so frightened by this accident that they at once resolved to return, though they had arrived in the country of the ivory: they never looked to see whether the canoes could be dragged past the narrows, as anyone else would have done. No better luck could be expected after all their fraud and duplicity in getting the canoes; no harm lay in obtaining them, but why try to prevent me getting one? _27th June, 1871._--In answer to my prayers for preservation, I was prevented going down to the narrows, formed by a dyke of mountains cutting across country, and jutting a little ajar, which makes the water in an enormous mass wheel round behind it helplessly, and if the canoes reach the rock against which the water dashes, they are almost certainly overturned. As this same dyke probably cuts across country to Lomamé, my plan of going to the confluence and then up won't do, for I should have to go up rapids there. Again, I was prevented from going down Luamo, and on the north of its confluence another cataract mars navigation in the Lualaba, and my safety is thereby secured. We don't always know the dangers that we are guided past. _28th June, 1871._--The river has fallen two feet: dark brown water, and still much wreck floating down.