K z. Sgggp
[1883.
Nov. 27.
Yomburri
had seen a large and long-extended town here. Just
above, I also remembered, we had had a tough fight
with the people, who had cried “ Ya Mariwa ” as
they charged on us, and there was the Tugarambusa
ridge, its outlines not to he mistaken.
On the morning of the 27th of November we were
delayed by a scantiness of fuel, due to the extent of the
clearing, so that departure was not possible until after
7 o’clock. A mile above our camp we detected some
object, of a slaty colour, floating down stream. The
En Avant steamed towards it, and the man with the
sou.nding-pole at the how, on arriving near it, turned
it over with a boat-hook. We were shocked to discover
the bodies of two women hound together with cord !
This tragedy, by the appearance of the bodies, must
have occurred about twelve hours previously.
"Wondering what could have caused the committal of
such a crime, we continued to follow the shore, where
the current was slack, until we came to the upper end
of the crescent bend, which is above Yavunga. At
the close of an hour we were rounding the point,
when looking up river hastily, we saw a white mass
fronting the landing-place of a village. I caught up
my glass and examined it. Others appeared in a
group, as we edged towards the centre of the stream.
They were ten ts; the Arabs of Nyangwe had been
overtaken!
They were evidently in force, for their camp, or
village, was evidently large enough for a great number,
and a rough palisade seemed to surround it. We
formed ourselves in line and advanced up-river. As 1883.
•Nov. 27.
we drew near I observed through the telescope that Yomburri.
our presence excited a commotion on the hanks, which
became lined with a multitude of men in white dress
who acted as if flurried. I also saw a large number of
canoes fastened to the landing-place, which revealed at
once the secret of these sudden midnight surprisals.
These people had in some manner descended the river
from Nyangwe past the Palls.
I felt conscious for a short period of an internal
struggle against an impulse, which was almost overpowering,
to avenge these devastations and massacres
of sleeping people. The picture of those houseless
people of Yomburri, the eloquent but most pitiful
tale of the old man, the corpses of the two women
bound together, which seemed to suggest a cold-blooded
deliberate murder—-all appealed to me for immediate
and complete vengeance. And yet—who am I that I
should take the law into my hands and mete out retribution
? The devilish deeds are already accomplished
—the embers of the burnt houses are cold, the blood
shed has long ago been dried. Then, again, came the
thought that the captives were still in bondage; the
tears of these are still flowing, their sorrow is even yet
fresh. And this naked land, raided, and devastated in
this cruel fashion, of what possible use would it be whein
emptied of its people? But it was useless for me to
repeat to myself such forcible reasons for revenging
these wholesale outrages. I had not the slightest shadow
of authority to vindicate the dictates of justice. I