I believe that Chumbiri—who, as I said, was a keen and enterprising trader, the first aboriginal African that might be compared to a Parsee—as soon as he obtained any brass wire, melted it and forged it into brass collars for his wives. That the collars were not larger may be attributed, perhaps, to his poverty. He boasted to me he possessed “four tens” of wives, and each wife was collared permanently in thick brass. I made a rough calculation, and I estimated that his wives bore about their necks until death at least 800 lbs. of brass; his daughters—he had six—120 lbs.; his favourite female slaves about 200 lbs. Add 6 lbs. of brass wire to each wife and daughter for arm and leg ornaments, and one is astonished to discover that Chumbiri possesses a portable store of 1396 lbs. of brass. [Illustration: ONE OF THE KING’S WIVES AT CHUMBIRI.] I asked of Chumbiri what he did with the brass on the neck of a dead wife. Chumbiri smiled. Cunning rogue; he regarded me benevolently, as though he loved me for the searching question. Significantly he drew his finger across his throat. The warriors and young men are distinguished for a characteristic style of hair-dressing, which belongs to Uyanzi alone. It is arranged into four separate plaits, two of which overhang the forehead like lovers’ curls. Another special mark of Uyanzi are two tattooed lines over the forehead. In whatever part of the lower Livingstone these peculiarities of style may be seen, they are indubitably Wy-yanzi, or natives of Uyanzi. The country of Uyanzi embraces many small districts, and extends along the left bank of the great river, from Bolobo, in south latitude 2° 23′ 14″, to the confluence of the Ibari Nkutu, or river of Nkutu, and the Livingstone, in 3° 14′ south latitude. The principal districts are Bolobo, Isangu, Chumbiri, Musevoka, Misongo, and Ibaka. Opposite is the country of the Bateké, a wilder tribe than the Wy-yanzi, some of the more eastern of whom are professed cannibals. To the north is the cannibal tribe of the Wanfuninga, of ferocious repute, and dreaded by the Wy-yanzi and Bateké. The language of Uyanzi seemed to us to be a mixture of almost all Central African dialects. Our great stock of native words in all dialects proved of immense use to me; and in three days I discovered, after classifying and comparing the words heard from the Wy-yanzi with other African words, that I was tolerably proficient, at least for all practical purposes, in the Kiyanzi dialect. _Mar. 7._—On the 7th March we parted from the friendly king of Chumbiri, with an escort of forty-five men, in three canoes under the leadership of his eldest son, who was instructed by his father to accompany us as far as the pool, now called Stanley Pool, because of an incident which will be described hereafter.