you say, this man was
caught at night in the camp, he has earned his death."
"Say you so, my brothers?" said Moto; "then it is well. But listen to
me; if the wind came to steal in our camp that big man would know it.
He seems never to sleep, never to rest; he could smell a Mhehe at night
afar off."
"Eyah, eyah, ey-eyah!! He must be the evil spirit." Saying which they
departed, muttering to themselves and looking very much crestfallen.
The caravans journeyed on for several days after the incidents just
related without meeting anything worthy of note in these pages. The
western part of Uhehe is very uninteresting; one march follows another
through the same _triste_ scenery. A long reach of country to the right
and the left, covered with short ripe grass, dotted with a ragged clump
of thorn-bush here and there, or a solitary baobab stem, unbending in
its vast girth and thickness of twigs, alone met the wearied eyes of the
travellers. The Wahehe, the southern Wagogo, mixed with a stray Wakimbu
family or two, permitted such a large caravan to pass without
molestation, so that the march was getting exceedingly monotonous. But
when, after crossing an unusually arid plain of some extent, they saw
before them a long line of white rocky bluffs, the people began to
whisper among themselves that "beyond those bluffs lay the lands of the
populous Warori, who are mostly shepherds, and will not, if in the mood
to quarrel, regard our numbers or strength."
It was the tenth week of the departure of the Arabs from Simbamwenni
when the above-mentioned bluffs were crossed, and the pastoral country
of the Warori extended far before them in a succession of wooded
hollows, bare uplands, and jungle-covered plains.
Those who knew Moto, the slave of Amer bin Osman, were startled at the
remarkable physical resemblance he bore to the majority of the shepherds
and villagers, who grouped themselves along the road to wonder at the
wealth of the Arab caravans, and to make their rustic comments upon what
they did not understand.
The Warori, however, did not seem disposed to dispute their advance, but
stood contentedly gazing at the strange sight of some of the whiter
faces among the Arabs. For instance, Khamis bin Abdullah and his son
Khamis, Amer bin Osman and his son Selim, and the boys Abdullah and
Mussoud. This paleness of complexion became often a matter of eager
speculation, and as those who, fortunately or unfortunately, pos
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