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fell upon the fleet. This was no human fighting: this must be Ibanza-fetish-and with wild plunges and jumps the canoes were deserted and drifted off down stream, while the poor Yaponga swam wildly through the storm of bullets to the opposite bank and wandered back in two and threes, through miles of forest to tell the sad tale of how Kambula died.

The Arabs captured most of the canoes, but that in which lay the body of the dead chief had, with one or two others, drifted far down stream and so escaped. On it drifted till near nightfall, when it was found by the ascending fleet of the marauding Bahunga. At first there was great rejoicing at finding their great enemy Kambula dead, but when they had cleared away the blood and searched for his wounds, they found only a small round hole from which the blood still welled forth. Then a deep fear seized upon the Bahunga. This was not the work of man, but of the devil. Years ago, two men with faces as pale as the moon had rushed madly down the great father of rivers and had spit fire and made just such holes in men. Then more pale faces had come up in great canoes vomiting smoke. They had not spit fire and death, but the Bahunga, fearing the smoke, had not gone near them, for they made a noise “Tooca-tooca," which is the noise of devils.

Lately they had heard from the Bakumu, of men whose faces were indeed dark, but who went about in long robes as white as the flower of the juniper, who by magic could make holes in men standing on the other side of a broad river. These men and the pale-faced "Toocatoocas" were now reported by the Bakumu to be spitting fire, noise, and death across Nzali at each other out of long tubes. Spitting nay they were fairly vomiting fire and magic; for the "Tooca-toocas" had three awful things, as big as the trunks of elephants, and hollow, and these kept belching forth smoke; and every time they smoked came a crash as of thunder when the lightning shivers the tall palm-tree bending before the fierce cyclone. No man could stand before such devils, and the white-clothed "Tamba-tamba" 1 were being cut down. What was this thing that could throw death even across Nzali, the great father of waters?

Perhaps these men were up the Komami now. Perhaps another palefaced devil was rushing down river behind the dead Kambula. Putting some of their slaves into the great crocodile-snouted canoe, the Bahunga turned in cold fear and paddled with all haste back to their stronghold villages on the almost inaccessible bluffs which overhang Nzali.

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Thus did Kambula's club pass into the hands of the Bahunga, while the Arabs, ascending the river, raided Yaponga and carried off the women and children into slavery.

So for some two moons a Bahunga chief kept possession of the ivory club, and it lay in his hut, unused. The Bahunga feared to go out marauding, for there were fearful and wonderful signs abroad— and who could tell what would happen next? There had been much fighting by the island of Wenya between the "Tooca-tooca " and the “Tamba-tamba,” till one night the whole tribe of Wenya had been aroused by a great earthquake and thunder, and had seen the "Tooca-tooca" go up to the skies in a great mass of fire and smoke-big as the storm-cloud that drives along Nzali before the wild typhoon. The "Tooca-tooca" was reported to be in the forest preparing to come down on his enemies the "Tamba-tamba," and annihilate them with thunder, fire, and smoke, and an earthquake that should shake the land and cause Nzali to run dry. Wherefore the Bahunga remained on their palisaded bluffs in fear and trembling, waiting for the end.

About one moon after the great earthquake on the island of Wenya-otherwise the blowing up of Falls Station by Deane-I came toiling up river, slowly and painfully breasting the strong current in the great white canoe that vomited smoke by day and flame by night. An anxious time I had of it till poor old Deane was safe on board. Even after that, when we had rushed down stream and given the Arabs a dusting at Yaporo, we were not safe, and by Deane's advice steamed on late into the night till far past Bahunga's palisaded bluffs and the forested hills crowned with the villages of that pirate tribe. We had no quarrel with the Bahunga, marauders though they were, but rather desired their cooperation against the Arabs, so we kept our guns out of sight, and, as we passed them towards evening, held out cloths and shiny bangles to intimate that we were friends and traders to them, though enemies of the Arabs, and would visit them peaceably when we came again. We had no time to stop then. The Bahunga being pirates, this display was not wise, but ignorance is bliss. So we steamed on till we came to a good camp on a wooded islet, and there made fast.

The moon was very young and it set early. The night was still and very close and hot. While the men were getting in the wood for the next day's run, I sat talking to Deane in the after part of the launch, which was moored-bow up stream-at the end of a sort of small cape, so as to have a good view all round. Suddenly one of the

Houssa sentries came aft, and, saluting, said: "Master, washensi (savage), he die in canoe, canoe he come." Taking my revolver and going forward, I saw a small dug-out, containing the apparently lifeless body of a native, whose head hung over the side and whose arms drooped into the water-drifting down on us. Deane raised himself on his

elbow and gazed intently towards the approaching canoe.

Silently the sentry and I waited. I with a pole to sheer off the floating coffin should it come too close, the sentry eagerly looking to see if there was any loot in the way of food in the canoe. Suddenly Deane's experienced eyes noted something wrong and he spoke just loud enough for me to catch his words, where I stood in the bow of the launch.

"Look out, old man! he's playing possum ; no canoe would drift cross current like that."

At the same instant the sentry whispered.

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"All right, Bunduki upesse,"2 I whispered back.

Scarcely had the sentry raised his gun and pointed it at the recumbent nigger, when the canoe struck our stem and swung round; throwing myself flat down on deck I reached over and seized the canoe with one hand, pointing my revolver with the other. Before I well knew what was the matter, a towering black figure was swinging something over my head. Crack went the sentry's rifle and Deane's revolver, and the sable Hercules fell wounded in his canoe. Two pots of palm-oil and a beautiful ivory club were all that was worth taking out of that canoe. The other weapons were a rough dagger and a slight assegai, showing that the man had intended to rob and perhaps kill one or more of us. The Houssa took the palm-oil and I kept the club which now hangs over my desk. Of all the hundred and odd native weapons I have brought home from the Congo, this has always been my favourite curio ever since I picked it out of that treacherous dug-out on the dark reaches below the Komami. I called it "Inkosi Kaas" after reading Rider Haggard, some of whose books Deane brought out to me when he returned to Africa a year later.

' (There is) palm-oil (in the canoe).

2 (Get your) gun quick.

IN

CERAMIC ART AT DERBY.

N all probability one of the first arts practised by man-prehistoric man-was that of the potter. Certain it is that the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Persians understood it nearly two thousand years before the dawn of the Christian era. In the early Scriptures the work of the thrower is clearly set forth. We have no difficulty in proving that a large Etruscan manufactory, and smaller ones in other parts of Italy, flourished a thousand years before Christ, having been inaugurated by a colony of Phoenicians, who settled at the foot of Mount Vesuvius. Two thousand four hundred

years or more ago we know that the Japanese manufactured both earthenware and porcelain, and a very little later the Chinese were engaged in the same pursuits.

In the very earliest days of the habitation of this island, the days of the prehistoric period-the ancient Briton period; the period of savagery-vessels of simple clay were formed for sepulchral and other uses. Many hundreds of barrows which have been opened have furnished examples of grave-mound pottery, and, by the antiquary, these have been arranged in four classes: I. Sepulchral or cinerary urns ; II. Drinking cups; III. Food vessels; IV. Immolation urns.

"The pottery" found in these barrows, writes the late Mr. Llewellyn Jewitt, "exhibits considerable difference, both in clay, in size, and in ornamentation. Those samples presumed to be the oldest are of course clay mixed with small pebbles and sand; the later ones of a somewhat clumsy form, and perhaps a finer mixture of clays. They are entirely wrought by hand, without the assistance of the wheel, and are mostly very thick and clumsy. They are very imperfectly fired, having probably been baked on the funeral pyre."

Evidence is forthcoming that the Grecians learnt the art from the Phoenicians or Egyptians. It was extensively practised by the Romans, and other nations, during the Middle Ages.

Coming now to a consideration of that branch of pottery distinguished as porcelain, we find authentic record that this was made at

Florence in 1580, and in the seventeenth century attracted much attention throughout Europe. The year 1706, or thereabouts, witnessed the establishment of the famous Dresden manufactory.

In England research commenced simultaneously with research on the Continent, and there are not wanting those who assert that Chelsea china works existed before those at Dresden.

A certain old document sets forth that one John Dwight did "by his own industry and at his own proper costs and charges, invent and sett up at Fulham the mystery of Porcelain or China and Persian Ware." His invention met with such poor encouragement that he burnt his recipes and implements in disgust, and it is doubtful whether there is a specimen of his porcelain extant. "Another version of this," says Mr. John Haslem, "is that he buried all his models, moulds, and tools in some secret place on the premises at Fulham, observing that the production of such matters was expensive and unremunerative, and he wished therefore to put it out of the power of his successors to perpetuate the business." The Chelsea Works were anticipated by those at Bow, and these two porcelain manufactories were the first in this country which attained celebrity or any amount of success.

Turning now from the historic aspect of the potter's art to a study of ceramic art as it flourishes to-day at Derby, we shall give some account of the manufacture and decoration of china at the Royal Crown Derby Porcelain Works, which we purposely visited to see for ourselves the mysteries of the time-honoured craft. Before entering upon any account of the processes of manufacture, it may be as well to state that we shall here consider porcclain as quite distinct from ordinary earthenware. To mark the difference between these, take any piece of common earthenware, fracture it and examine the fracture, and you will find it to be of a dry and earthy appearance and perfectly opaque-save perhaps to Röntgen rays. On the other hand, take a piece of porcelain, fracture it and examine the fracture, and you will at once see that it is vitreous. The composition constituting the "body" of the piece of earthenware is of pipe-clay, marl, and flint fused in the kiln. When the kiln is at its greatest heat common salt is thrown in, and imparts a glaze, its soda combining with the silica of the clay. Only one burning is required.

The composition constituting the "body" of a piece of porcelain, as made in England to-day, consists of china-clay, felspar, calcined bones, Cornish clay, and Cornish granite, mixed in different proportions. The glaze is made of flint, felspar, Cornish granite, borax,

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