About 1500 people came to market, though many villages of those that usually come from the other side were now in flames, and every now and then a number of shots were fired on the fugitives.
The Massacre of the Manyuema Women at Nyangwe
It was a hot, sultry day, and when I went into the market I saw Adie and Manilla, and three of the men who had lately come with Dugumbé. I was surprised to see these three with their guns, and felt inclined to reprove them, as one of my men did, for bringing weapons into the market, but I attributed it to their ignorance, and, it being very hot, I was walking away to go out of the market, when I saw one of the fellows haggling about a fowl, and seizing hold of it. Before I had got thirty yards out, the discharge of two guns in the middle of the crowd told me that slaughter had begun: crowds dashed off from the place, and threw down their wares in confusion, and ran. At the same time that the three opened fire on the mass of people near the upper end of the marketplace volleys were discharged from a party down near the creek on the panic-stricken women, who dashed at the canoes. These, some fifty or more, were jammed in the creek, and the men forgot their paddles in the terror that seized all. The canoes were not to be got out, for the creek was too small for so many; men and women, wounded by the balls, poured into them, and leaped and scrambled into the water, shrieking. A long line of heads in the river showed that great numbers struck out for an island a full mile off: in going towards it they had to put the left shoulder to a current of about two miles an hour; if they had struck away diagonally to the opposite bank, the current would have aided them, and, though nearly three miles off, some would have gained land: as it was, the heads above water showed the long line of those that would inevitably perish.
Shot after shot continued to be fired on the helpless and perishing. Some of the long line of heads disappeared quietly; whilst other poor creatures threw their arms high, as if appealing to the great Father above, and sank. One canoe took in as many as it could hold, and all paddled with hands and arms: three canoes, got out in haste, picked up sinking friends, till all went down together, and disappeared. One man in a long canoe, which could have held forty or fifty, had clearly lost his head; he had been out in the stream before the massacre began, and now paddled up the river nowhere, and never looked to the drowning. By-and-bye all the heads disappeared; some had turned down stream towards the bank, and escaped. Dugumbé put people into one of the deserted vessels to save those in the water, and saved twenty-one, but one woman refused to be taken on board from thinking that she was to be made a slave of; she preferred the chance of life by swimming, to the lot of a slave: the Bagenya women are expert in the water, as they are accustomed to dive for oysters, and those who went down stream may have escaped, but the Arabs themselves estimated the loss of life at between 330 and 400 souls. The shooting-party near the canoes were so reckless, they killed two of their own people; and a Banyamwezi follower, who got into a deserted canoe to plunder, fell into the water, went down, then came up again, and down to rise no more.
My first impulse was to pistol the murderers, but Dugumbé protested against my getting into a blood-feud, and I was thankful afterwards that I took his advice. Two wretched Moslems asserted "that the firing was done by the people of the English;" I asked one of them why he lied so, and he could utter no excuse: no other falsehood came to his aid as he stood abashed, before me, and so telling him not to tell palpable falsehoods, I left him gaping.
After the terrible affair in the water, the party of Tagamoio, who was the chief perpetrator, continued to fire on the people there and fire their villages. As I write I hear the loud wails on the left bank over those who are there slain, ignorant of their many friends now in the depths of Lualaba. Oh, let Thy kingdom come! No one will ever know the exact loss on this bright sultry summer morning, it gave me the impression of being in Hell. All the slaves in the camp rushed at the fugitives on land, and plundered them: women were for hours collecting and carrying loads of what had been thrown down in terror.
Some escaped to me, and were protected: Dugumbé saved twenty-one, and of his own accord liberated them, they were brought to me, and remained over night near my house. One woman of the saved had a musket-ball through the thigh, another in the arm. I sent men with our flag to save some, for without a flag they might have been victims, for Tagamoio's people were shooting right and left like fiends. I counted twelve villages burning this morning. I asked the question of Dugumbé and others, "Now for what is all this murder?" All blamed Manilla as its cause, and in one sense he was the cause; but it is hardly credible that they repeat it is in order to be avenged on Manilla for making friends with headmen, he being a slave. I cannot believe it fully. The wish to make an impression in the country as to the importance and greatness of the new comers was the most potent motive; but it was terrible that the murdering of so many should be contemplated at all. It made me sick at heart. Who could accompany the people of Dugumbé and Tagamoio to Lomamé and be free from blood-guiltiness?
I proposed to Dugumbé to catch the murderers, and hang them up in the marketplace, as our protest against the bloody deeds before the Manyuema. If, as he and others added, the massacre was committed by Manilla's people, he would have consented; but it was done by Tagamoio's people, and others of this party, headed by Dugumbé. This slaughter was peculiarly atrocious, inasmuch as we have always heard that women coming to or from market have never been known to be molested: even when two districts are engaged in actual hostilities, "the women," say they, "pass among us to market unmolested," nor has one ever been known to be plundered by the men. These Nigger Moslems are inferior to the Manyuema in justice and right. The people under Hassani began the superwickedness of capture and pillage of all indiscriminately. Dugumbé promised to send over men to order Tagamoio's men to cease firing and burning villages; they remained over among the ruins, feasting on goats and fowls all night, and next day (16th) continued their infamous work till twenty-seven villages were destroyed.