we were again assaulted by the aborigines. We
drove them back, and obtained a peaceful passage
past them, until i p .m. During this interval
I obtained an observation for latitude and
ascertained we had reached north latitude o°
22' 29".
From 1 p .m . we were engaged with a new tribe
which possessed very large villages, and maintained
a running fight with us until 4 p ;m ., when,
observing the large village of Ituka below us,
and several canoes cutting across river to head
us off, we resolved to make our stand on the
shore. Material for constructing a boma was
soon discovered in the outlying houses of the
village, and by five o’clock we were tolerably
secure on the edge of the steep banks— all obstructions
cleared away on the land side, and a
perfect view of the river front and shore below
us.
The savages were hideously be-painted for
war, one-half of their bodies being white, the
other ochreous. Their shields were oblong
squares, beautifully made of rattan cane, light,
tough, and to spears and knives impenetrable.
A square slab of ebony wood with a cleat, and
one long thin board placed, lengthways, and
another crossways, sufficed to stiffen them.
Shouting their war-cries— “ Ya-Mariwa! Ya-Ma-
riwa!” — they rushed on our boma fences like
a herd of buffaloes several times, in one of
rjan. 29. 1877-T OUR BULWARKS OF SHIELDS. 337 [ Ituka. J
which charges Muftah Rufiji was killed, a broad
spear-blade sharp as a razor ripping nearly eight
inches of his abdomen open; another man received
a wound from a spear, which had glanced
along his back. As the heavy spears hurtled
through the boma, or flew over it, very many
of us had extremely narrow escapes. Frank,
for instance, avoided one by giving his body a
slight jerk on one side. We, of course, had the
advantage, being protected by doors, roofs of
houses, poles, brushwood, and our great Mwana-
Ntaba shields, which had been of invaluable use
to us, and had often in the heat of fights saved
us and made us almost invulnerable.
From the Ruiki river up to this afternoon of
the 29th January we had fought twenty-four
times, and out of these struggles we had obtained
sixty-five door-like shields, which upon
the commencement of a fight on the river at all
times had been raised by the women, children,
and non-combatants as bulwarks befofe the
riflemen, from behind which, cool and confident,
the forty-three guns were of [more avail than
though there were 150 [riflemen unprotected.
The steersmen, likewise protected, were enabled
to steer their vessels with the current while we
were engaged in these running fights. Against
the spears and arrows the shields were impervious.
At sunset our antagonists retired, leaving us
THROUGH THE DARK CONTINENT. VOL. IIX.