Sanders nodded. He called his servants and gave directions for the visitor's comfortable housing.
A week later, Mr. Hold embarked for the upper river with considerable misgiving, for the canoe which Sanders had placed at his disposal seemed, to say the least, inadequate.
It was at this time that the Ochori were in some disfavour with the neighbouring tribes, and a small epidemic of rebellion and warfare had sustained the interest of the Commissioner in his wayward peoples.
First, the N'gombi people fought the Ochori, then the Isisi folk went to war with the Akasava over a question of women, and the Ochori went to war with the Isisi, and between whiles, the little bush folk warred indiscriminately with everybody, relying on the fact that they lived in the forest and used poisoned arrows.
They were a shy, yet haughty people, and they poisoned their arrows with tetanus, so that all who were wounded by them died of lock-jaw after many miserable hours.
They were engaged in harrying the Ochori people, when Mr. Commissioner Sanders, who was not unnaturally annoyed, came upon the scene with fifty Houssas and a Maxim gun, and although the little people were quick, they did not travel as fast as a well-sprayed congregation of .303 bullets, and they sustained a few losses.
Then Timbani, the little chief of the Lesser Isisi, spoke to his people assembled:
"Let us fight the Ochori, for they are insolent, and their chief is a foreigner and of no consequence."
And the fighting men of the tribe raised their hands and cried, "Wa!"
Timbani led a thousand spears into the Ochori country, and wished he had chosen another method of spending a sultry morning, for whilst he was burning the village of Kisi, Sanders came with vicious unexpectedness upon his flank, from the bush country.