in his stead, though he had committed no fault or intentional
injury towards them. I t was true Manila Séra, their
enemy, had taken refuge in his palace, but that was not
his fault ; for; anticipating the difficulties that would
arise, he did his best to keep Manila Séra out of it, but
Manila Séra, being too strong for him, forced his way in.
I need not say I tried to console this unfortunate victim
of circumstances as best I could, inviting him to go with
me to Kazé, and promising to protect him with my life if
he feared the Arabs ; but the old man, being too feeble to
travel himself, said he would send his son with me.
Next day we pushed on a double march through the
To Camp 15th. ^ores^ an<^ reached a nullah. As it crosses
the track in a southernly direction, this might
either be the head of the Killulu mongo or river, which,
passing through the district of Kiwélé, drains westward
into the Malagarazi river, and thence into the Tanganyika,
or else the most westerly tributary to the Rtiaha river,
draining eastward into the sea. The plateau, however, is
apparently so flat here, that nothing but a minute survey,
or rather following the watercourse, could determine the
To e . Ttira l e a m a t t e r - Then emerging from the wilderness,
we came into the open cultivated district of
Tura, or “ put down”—called so by the natives because
it was, only a few years ago, the first cleared space in the
wilderness, and served as a good halting-station, after
the normal ten days’ march in the jungles, where we had
now been struggling more than a month.
The whole place, once so fertile, was now almost depopulated
and in a sad state of ruin, showing plainly the
savage ravages of war ; for the Arabs and their slaves,
when they take the field, think more of plunder and
slavery than the object they started on—each man of the
force looking out for himself. The incentives, too, are so
great ;—a young woman might be caught (the greatest
treasure on earth), or a boy or a girl, a cow or a goat—all
of them fortunes, of themselves too irresistible to be overlooked
when the future is doubtful. Here Sheikh Said
broke down in health of a complaint which he formerly
had suffered from, and from which I at once saw he
would never recover sufficiently well to be ever effective
again. I t was a sad misfortune, as the men had great
confidence in him, being the representative of their Zanzibar
government: still it could not be helped; for, as a
sick man is, after all, the greatest possible impediment to
a march, it was better to be rid of him than have the
trouble of dragging h im ; so I made up my mind, as soon
as we reached Kaze, I would drop him there with the
Arabs. He could not be moved on the 16th,
To W. Ttira, 17ft. T g , ,1 i • ,1 j . r l so I marched across the plam and put up in
some villages on its western side. Whilst waiting for the
sheikh’s arrival, some villagers at night stole several loads
of beads, and ran off with them; but my men, finding
the theft out in time, hunted them down, and recovered
all but one load—for the thieves had thrown their loads
down as soon as they found they were hotly pursued.
Early this morning I called all the head men of the
village together, and demanded the beads to
be restored to me ; for, as I was living with
them, they were responsible, according to the laws of the
country. They acknowledged the truth and force of my
demand, and said they would each give me a cow as an
earnest, until their chief, who was absent, arrived. This,
of course, was objected to, as the chief, in his absence, must
have deputed some one to govern for him, and I expected
him to settle at once, that I might proceed with the march.
Then selecting five of my head men to conduct the case,
with five of their elders, it was considered my losses were
equivalent to thirty head of cattle. As I remitted the
penalty to fifteen head, these were made over to me, and
we went on with the march—all feeling delighted with the