The Arabs tell me that Monyungo, a chief, was sent for five years among the Watuta to learn their language and ways, and he sent his two sons and a daughter to Zanzibar to school. He kills many of his people, and says they are so bad that if not killed they would murder strangers. Once they were unruly, when he ordered some of them to give their huts to Mohamad; on refusing, he put fire to them, and they soon called out, "Let them alone; we will retire." He dresses like an Arab, and has ten loaded guns at his sitting-place, four pistols, two swords, several spears, and two bundles of the Batuta spears: he laments that his father filed his teeth when he was young. The name of his very numerous people is Bawungu, country Urungu: his other names are Ironga, Mohamu.
The Basango, on the other hand, consider their chief as a deity, and fear to say aught wrong, lest he should hear them: they fear both before him and when out of sight.
The father of Meréré never drank pombe or beer, and assigned as a reason that a great man who had charge of people's lives should never become intoxicated so as to do evil. Bangé he never smoked, but in council smelled at a bunch of it, in order to make his people believe that it had a great effect on him. Meréré drinks pombe freely, but never uses bangé: he alone kills sheep; he is a lover of mutton and beef, but neither goats nor fowls are touched by him.
9th November, 1870.—I sent to Lohombo for dura, and planted some Nyumbo. I long excessively to be away and finish my work by the two Lacustrine rivers, Lualaba of Webb and Young, but wait only for Syde and Dugumbé, who may have letters, and as I do not intend to return hither, but go through Karagwé homewards, I should miss them altogether. I groan and am in bitterness at the delay, but thus it is: I pray for help to do what is right, but sorely am I perplexed, and grieved and mourn: I cannot give up making a complete work of the exploration.
10th November, 1870.—A party of Katomba's men arrived on their way to Ujiji for carriers, they report that a foray was made S.W. of Mamohela to recover four guns, which were captured from Katomba; three were recovered, and ten of the Arab party slain. The people of Manyuema fought very fiercely with arrows, and not till many were killed and others mutilated would they give up the guns; they probably expected this foray, and intended to fight till the last. They had not gone in search of ivory while this was enacting, consequently Mohamad's men have got the start of them completely, by going along Lualaba to Kasongo's, and then along the western verge of the Metamba or forest to Loindé or Rindi River. The last men sent took to fighting instead of trading, and returned empty; the experience gained thus, and at the south-west, will probably lead them to conclude that the Manyuema are not to be shot down without reasonable cause. They have sown rice and maize at Mamohela, but cannot trade now where they got so much ivory before. Five men were killed at Rindi or Loindé, and one escaped: the reason of this outbreak by men who have been so peaceable is not divulged, but anyone seeing the wholesale plunder to which the houses and gardens were subject can easily guess the rest. Mamohela's camp had several times been set on fire at night by the tribes which suffered assault, but did not effect all that was intended. The Arabs say that the Manyuema now understand that every gunshot does not kill; the next thing they will learn will be to grapple in close quarters in the forest, where their spears will outmatch the guns in the hands of slaves, it will follow, too, that no one will be able to pass through this country; this is the usual course of Suaheli trading; it is murder and plunder, and each slave as he rises in his owner's favour is eager to show himself a mighty man of valour, by cold-blooded killing of his countrymen: if they can kill a fellow-nigger, their pride boils up. The conscience is not enlightened enough to cause uneasiness, and Islam gives less than the light of nature.
I am grievously tired of living here. Mohamad is as kind as he can be, but to sit idle or give up before I finish my work are both intolerable; I cannot bear either, yet I am forced to remain by want of people.
11th November, 1870.—I wrote to Mohamad bin Saleh at Ujiji for letters and medicines to be sent in a box of China tea, which is half empty: if he cannot get carriers for the long box itself, then he is to send these, the articles of which I stand in greatest need.
The relatives of a boy captured at Monanyembé brought three goats to redeem him: he is sick and emaciated; one goat was rejected. The boy shed tears when he saw his grandmother, and the father too, when his goat was rejected. "So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter."—Eccles. iv. 1. The relations were told either to bring the goat, or let the boy die; this was hard-hearted. At Mamohela ten goats are demanded for a captive, and given too; here three are demanded. "He that is higher than the highest regardeth, and there be higher than they. Marvel not at the matter."
I did not write to the coast, for I suspect that the Lewalé Syde bin Salem Buraschid destroys my letters in order to quash the affair of robbery by his man Saloom, he kept the other thief, Kamaels, by him for the same purpose. Mohamad writes to Bin Saleh to say that I am here and well; that I sent a large packet of letters in June 1869, with money, and received neither an answer, nor my box from Unyanyembé, and this is to be communicated to the Consul by a friend at Zanzibar. If I wrote, it would only be to be burned; this is as far as I can see at present: the friend who will communicate with the Consul is Mohamad bin Abdullah the Wuzeer, Seyd Suleiman is the Lewalé of the Governor of Zanzibar, Suleiman bin Ali or Sheikh Suleiman the Secretary.
The Mamohela horde is becoming terrified, for every party going to trade has lost three or four men, and in the last foray they saw that the Manyuema can fight, for they killed ten men: they will soon refuse to go among those whom they have forced to become enemies.