The storm of the previous night, by swelling1 the tributaries2 of the Coanza, had caused the main river to overflow3 its banks. The inundation4 had entirely5 changed the aspect of the country, transforming the plain into a lake, where the peaks of a number of ant-hills were the sole objects that emerged above the watery6 expanse.
The Coanza, which is one of the principal rivers of Angola, falls into the Atlantic about a hundred miles from the spot at which the "Pilgrim" was stranded7. The stream, which a few years later was crossed by Cameron on his way to Benguela, seems destined8 to become the chief highway of traffic between Angola and the interior; steamers already ply9 upon its lower waters, and probably ten years will not elapse before they perform regular service along its entire course.
Dick Sands had been quite right in searching northwards for the navigable stream he had been so anxious to find; the rivulet10 he had been following fell into the Coanza scarce a mile away, and had it not been for this unexpected attack he and his friends might reasonably have hoped to descend11 the river upon a raft, until they reached one of the Portuguese12 forts where steam vessels13 put in. But their fate was ordered otherwise.
The camp which Dick had descried14 from the ant-hill was pitched upon an eminence15 crowned by an enormous sycamore-fig, one of those giant trees occasionally found in Central Africa, of which the spreading foliage16 will shelter some five hundred men. Some of the non-fruit-bearing kind of banyan-trees formed the background of the landscape.
Beneath the shelter of the sycamore, the caravan17 which had been referred to in the conversation between Negoro and Harris had just made a halt. Torn from their villages by the agents of the slave-dealer Alvez, the large troop of natives was on its way to the market of Kazonndé, thence to be sent as occasion required either to the west coast, or to Nyangwé, in the great lake district, to be dispersed18 into Upper Egypt or Zanzibar.
Immediately on reaching the camp, the four negroes and old Nan were placed under precisely19 the same treatment as the rest of the captives. In spite of a desperate resistance, they were deprived of their weapons, and fastened two and two, one behind another, by means of a pole about six feet long, forked at each end, and attached to their necks by an iron bolt. Their arms were left free, that they might carry any burdens, and in order to prevent an attempt to escape a heavy chain was passed round their waists. It was thus in single file, unable to turn either right or left, they would have to march hundreds of miles, goaded20 along their toilsome road by the havildar's whip. The lot of Hercules seemed preferable, exposed though undoubtedly21 he would be in his flight to hunger, and to the attacks of wild beasts, and to all the perils22 of that dreary23 country. But solitude24, with its worst privations, was a thing to be envied in comparison to being in the hands of those pitiless drivers, who did not speak a word of the language of their victims, but communicated with them only by threatening gestures or by actual violence.
As a white man, Dick was not attached to any other captive. The drivers were probably afraid to subject him to the same treatment as the negroes, and he was left unfettered, but placed under the strict surveillance of a havildar. At first he felt considerable surprise at not seeing Harris or Negoro in the camp, as he could not entertain a doubt that it was at their instigation the attack had been made upon their retreat; but when he came to reflect that Mrs. Weldon, Jack25, and Cousin Benedict had not been allowed to come with them, but had been carried off in some other direction, he began to think it probable that the two rascals26 had some scheme to carry out with regard to them elsewhere.
The caravan consisted of nearly eight hundred, including about five hundred slaves of both sexes, two hundred soldiers and freebooters, and a considerable number of havildars and drivers, over whom the agents acted as superior officers.
These agents are usually of Portuguese or Arab extraction; and the cruelties they inflict27 upon the miserable28 captives are almost beyond conception; they beat them continually, and if any unfortunate slave sinks from exhaustion29, or in any way becomes unfit for the market, he is forthwith either stabbed or shot. As the result of this brutality30 it rarely happens that fifty per cent of the slaves reach their destination; some few may contrive31 to escape, and many are left as skeletons along the line of route.
Such of the agents as are Portuguese are (as it may well be imagined) of the very lowest dregs of society, outlaws32, escaped criminals, and men of the most desperate character; of this stamp were the associates of Negoro and Harris, now in the employ of José Antonio Alvez, one of the most notorious of all the slave-dealers33 of Central Africa, and of whom Commander Cameron has given some curious information.
Most frequently the soldiers who escort the captives are natives hired by the dealers, but they do not possess the entire monopoly of the forays made for the purpose of securing slaves; the native negro kings make war upon each other with this express design, and sell their vanquished34 antagonists35, men, women, and children, to the traders for calico, guns, gunpowder36 and red beads37; or in times of famine, according to Livingstone, even for a few grains of maize38.
The escort of old Alvez' caravan was an average specimen39 of these African soldiers. It was simply a horde40 of half-naked banditti, carrying old flint-locked muskets41, the barrels of which were decorated with copper42 rings. The agents are very often put to their wits' end to know how to manage them; their orders are called in question, halts are continually demanded, and in order to avert43 desertion they are frequently obliged to yield to the obstreperous44 will of their undisciplined force.
Although the slaves, both male and female, are compelled to carry burdens whilst on their march, a certain number of porters, called pagazis, is specially45 engaged to carry the more valuable merchandize, and principally the ivory. Tusks46 occasionally weigh as much as 160 lbs., and require two men to carry them to the dépôts, whence they are sent to the markets of Khartoom, Natal47, and Zanzibar. On their arrival the pagazis are paid by the dealers according to contract, which is generally either by about twenty yards of the cotton stuff known as merikani, or by a little powder, by a handful or two of cowries, by some beads, or if all these be scarce, they are paid by being allotted48 some of the slaves who are otherwise unsalable.
Among the five hundred slaves in the caravan, very few were at all advanced in years. The explanation of this circumstance was that whenever a raid is made, and a village is set on fire, every inhabitant above the age of forty is mercilessly massacred or hung upon the neighbouring trees; only the children and young adults of both sexes are reserved for the market, and as these constitute only a small proportion of the vanquished, some idea may be formed of the frightful49 depopulation which these vast districts of Equinoctial Africa are undergoing.
Nothing could be more pitiable than the condition of this miserable herd50. All alike were destitute51 of clothing, having nothing on them but a few strips of the stuff known as mbuza, made from the bark of trees; many of the women were covered with bleeding wounds from the drivers' lashes52, and had their feet lacerated by the constant friction53 of the road............