19th November, 1868.—I prepared to start to-day, but Mohamad Bogharib has been very kind, and indeed cooked meals for me from my arrival at Casembe's, 6th May last, till we came here, 22nd October; the food was coarse enough, but still it was food; and I did not like to refuse his genuine hospitality. He now begged of me not to go for three days, and then he would come along with me! Mpamari also entreated. I would not have minded him, but they have influence with the canoe-men on Tanganyika, and it is well not to get a bad name if possible.
20th November, 1868.—Mohamad Bogharib purposed to attack two villages near to this, from an idea that the people there concealed his runaway slaves; by remaining I think that I have put a stop to this, as he did not like to pillage while I was in company: Mpamari also turned round towards peace, though he called all the riff-raff to muster, and caracoled among them like an old broken-winded horse. One man became so excited with yelling, that the others had to disarm him, and he then fell down as if in a fit; water poured on his head brought him to calmness. We go on the 22nd.
22nd November, 1868.—This evening the Imbozhwa, or Babemba, came at dusk, and killed a Wanyamwezi woman on one side of the village, and a woman and child on the other side of it. I took this to be the result of the warlike demonstration mentioned above; but one of Mohamad Bogharib's people, named Bin Juma, had gone to a village on the north of this and seized two women and two girls, in lieu of four slaves who had run away. The headman, resenting this, shot an arrow into one of Bin Junta's party, and Bin Juma shot a woman with his gun.
This, it turned out, had roused the whole country, and next morning we were assailed by a crowd of Imbozhwa on three sides: we had no stockade, but the men built one as fast as the enemy allowed, cutting down trees and carrying them to the line of defence, while others kept the assailants at bay with their guns. Had it not been for the crowd of Banyamwezi which we have, who shot vigorously with their arrows, and occasionally chased the Imbozhwa, we should have been routed. I did not go near the fighting, but remained in my house to defend my luggage if necessary. The women went up and down the village with sieves, as if winnowing, and singing songs, and lullilooing, to encourage their husbands and friends who were fighting, each had a branch of the Ficus indica in her hand, which she waved, I suppose as a charm. About ten of the Imbozhwa are said to have been killed, but dead and wounded were at once carried off by their countrymen. They continued the assault from early dawn till 1 P.M., and showed great bravery, but they wounded only two with their arrows. Their care to secure the wounded was admirable: two or three at once seized the fallen man, and ran off with him, though pursued by a great crowd of Banyamwezi with spears, and fired at by the Suaheli—Victoria-cross fellows truly many of them were! Those who had a bunch of animals' tails, with medicine, tied to their waists, came sidling and ambling up to near the unfinished stockade, and shot their arrows high up into the air, to fall among the Wanyamwezi, then picked up any arrows on the field, ran back, and returned again. They thought that by the ambling gait they avoided the balls, and when these whistled past them they put down their heads, as if to allow them to pass over; they had never encountered guns before. We did not then know it, but Muabo, Phuta, Ngurué, Sandaruko, and Chapi, were the assailants, for we found it out by the losses each of these five chiefs sustained.
It was quite evident to me that the Suaheli Arabs were quite taken aback by the attitude of the natives; they expected them to flee as soon as they heard a gun fired in anger, but instead of this we were very nearly being cut off, and should have been but for our Banyamwezi allies. It is fortunate that the attacking party had no success in trying to get Mpwéto and Karembwé to join them against us, or it would have been more serious still.
24th November, 1868.—The Imbozhwa, or Babemba rather, came early this morning, and called on Mohamad to come out of his stockade if he were a man who could fight, but the fence is now finished, and no one seems willing to obey the taunting call: I have nothing to do with it, but feel thankful that I was detained, and did not, with my few attendants, fall into the hands of the justly infuriated Babemba. They kept up the attack to-day, and some went out to them, fighting till noon: when a man was killed and not carried off, the Wanyamwezi brought his head and put it on a pole on the stockade—six heads were thus placed. A fine young man was caught and brought in by the Wanyamwezi, one stabbed him behind, another cut his forehead with an axe, I called in vain to them not to kill him. As a last appeal, he said to the crowd that surrounded him, "Don't kill me, and I shall take you to where the women are." "You lie," said his enemies; "you intend to take us where we may be shot by your friends;" and they killed him. It was horrible: I protested loudly against any repetition of this wickedness, and the more sensible agreed that prisoners ought not to be killed, but the Banyamwezi are incensed against the Babemba because of the women killed on the 22nd.
25th November, 1868.—The Babemba kept off on the third day, and the Arabs are thinking it will be a good thing if we get out of the country unscathed. Men were sent off on the night of the 23rd to Syde bin Habib for powder and help. Mohamad Bogharib is now unwilling to take the onus of the war: he blames Mpamari, and Mpamari blames him; I told Mohamad that the war was undoubtedly his work, inasmuch as Bin Juma is his man, and he approved of his seizing the women.
He does not like this, but it is true; he would not have entered a village of Casembe or Moamba or Chikumbi as he did Chapi's man's village: the people here are simply men of more metal than he imagined, and his folly in beginning a war in which, if possible, his slaves will slip through his hands is apparent to all, even to himself. Syde sent four barrels of gunpowder and ten men, who arrived during last night.
27th November, 1868.—Two of Muabo's men came over to bring on a parley; one told us that he had been on the south side of the village before, and heard one man say to another "mo pigé" (shoot him). Mpamari gave them a long oration in exculpation, but it was only the same everlasting, story of fugitive slaves. The slave-traders cannot prevent them from escaping, and impudently think that the country people ought to catch them, and thus be their humble servants, and also the persecutors of their own countrymen! If they cannot keep them, why buy them—why put their money into a bag with holes?
It is exactly what took place in America—slave-owners are bad neighbours everywhere. Canada was threatened, England browbeaten, and the Northerners all but kicked on the same score, and all as if property in slaves had privileges which no other goods have. To hear the Arabs say of the slaves after they are fled, "Oh, they are bad, bad, very bad!" (and they entreated me too to free them from the yoke), is, as the young ladies say, "too absurd." The chiefs also who do not apprehend fugitives, they too are "bad."