size.[7]

Rains continued; and mud and mire from the clayey soil of Manyuema were
too awful to be attempted.

_24th May, 1870._--I sent to Bambarre for the cloth and beads I left
there. A party of Thani's people came south and said that they had
killed forty Manyuema, and lost four of theirown number; nine villages
were burned, and all this about a single string of beads which a man
tried to steal!

_June, 1870._--Mohamad bin Nassur and Akila's men brought 116 tusks from
the north, where the people are said to be all good and obliging:
Akila's chief man had a large deep ulcer on the foot from the mud. When
we had the people here, Kassessa gave ten goats and one tusk to hire
them to avenge a feud in which his elder brother was killed, and they
went; the spoils secured were 31 captives, 60 goats, and about 40
Manyuema killed: one slave of the attacking party was killed, and two
badly wounded. Thani's man, Yahood, who was leader in the other case of
40 killed, boasted before me of the deed. I said, "You were sent here
not to murder, but to trade;" he replied, "We are sent to murder." Bin
Nassur said, "The English are always killing people;" I replied, "Yes,
but only slavers who do the deeds that were done yesterday."

Various other tribes sent large presents to the Arabs to avert assaults,
and tusks too were offered.

The rains had continued into June, and fifty-eight inches fell.

_26th June, 1870._--Now my people failed me; so, with only three
attendants, Susi, Chuma, and Gardner, I started off to the north-west
for the Lualaba. The numbers of running rivulets to be crossed were
surprising, and at each, for some forty yards, the path had been worked
by the feet of passengers into adhesive mud: we crossed fourteen in one
day--some thigh deep; most of them run into the Liya, which we crossed,
and it flows to the Lualaba. We passed through many villages, for the
paths all lead through human dwellings. Many people presented bananas,
and seemed surprised when I made a small return gift; one man ran after
me with a sugar-cane; I paid for lodgings too: here the Arabs never do.

_28th June, 1870._--The driver ants were in millions in some part of
the way; on this side of the continent they seem less fierce than I have
found them in the west.

_29th June, 1870._--At one village musicians with calabashes, having
holes in them, flute-fashion, tried to please me by their vigorous
acting, and by beating drums in time.

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