But the march soon disintegrated into chaos, with large-scale desertion and multiple trips to try to bring up stores; then on 19 July Barttelot was shot while trying to interfere with a Manyema festival. Jameson decided to go down to Bangala to bring up extra loads and left on 9 August, shortly before Stanley's arrival. Stanley was incensed at the state of the Rear Column, blaming them for lack of motion despite his previous orders that they wait for him at Yambuya. From surviving officers Stanley also heard stories of Barttelot's brutality and of another officer, James Sligo Jameson, who was alleged to have purchased a young female slave and given her to cannibals so he could record her being killed and eaten.[6] In his posthumously published diary, Jameson admitted that he had indeed paid for the girl and watched as she was butchered, but claimed that he considered the whole affair a joke and had not expected her to actually be killed.
I sent my boy for six handkerchiefs, thinking it was all a joke …, but presently a man appeared, leading a young girl of about ten years old at the hand, and I then witnessed the most horribly sickening sight I am ever likely to see in my life. He plunged a knife quickly into her breast twice, and she fell on her face, turning over on her side. Three men then ran forward, and began to cut up the body of the girl; finally her head was cut off, and not a particle remained, each man taking his piece away down to the river to wash it. The most extraordinary thing was that the girl never uttered a sound, nor struggled, until she fell. Until the last moment, I could not believe that they were in earnest… that it was anything save a ruse to get money out of me…. When I went home I tried to make some small sketches of the scene while still fresh in my memory, not that it is ever likely to fade from it. No one here seemed to be in the least astonished at it."[7]
According to the testimony of Jameson's colleague William Bonny, Jameson must have stayed around to watch while the girl was cooked and consumed, since the last of his six sketches (which he had shown Bonny) "represents the feast."[8] The "six handkerchiefs" Jameson had paid were indeed valuable enough to purchase a child slave, and Jameson's diary also shows that he was well informed of cannibal customs and had even seen remainders of a cannibal meal before, making his line of defense doubtful.[9]