I learned from some of Ugarrowwa’s men that inland from Bwamburi are the Ababua tribe, among whom a different style of architecture prevails, the huts being more commodious and comfortable, and plastered, and that to the dwellings are attached wide verandahs. I was also told that their blacksmith’s art was carried to a high standard, and that on every blade of spear, sword, knife, or arrow, considerable decorations were lavished. Some of the tri-bladed and four-bladed knives were shown to me, and they were recognised as characteristic of the Monbuttu and Nyam-Nyam as described by Schweinfurth in his “Artes Africanæ.”
On leaving Wasp Rapids, on the 12th, our canoes carried 198; the land column under Mr. Bonny numbered 262. Being unladen, the trained men arrived in camp before the advance canoe of the flotilla. The road was now distinct and well trodden like ordinary African footpaths.
1888.
Sept. 12.
Manginni.
On reaching camp, however, the men, under pretence of cutting phrynia leaves to roof their huts, vanished into the forest, eluding the guards, and escaped along a path leading inland. Some of these managed to gain a few fowls, a sheaf or two of sugar-cane, and an abundance of mature plantains, but there were others who met only misfortune. Three Manyuema were killed, and a Lado soldier of the irregulars of Emin Pasha received a broad and sharp spear through his body, which, glancing past the vertebræ, caused a ghastly wound, but fortunately uninjured a vital part. The wounds were sewn up and bandages applied. The rear guard reported that on the road five Manyuema, three Zanzibaris, and one Soudanese were killed and eaten by ghoulish natives who had been hiding while the column was passing, and that these men belonging to the Banalya party had been resting near their hiding-place, when they were suddenly set upon and despatched. It was only five days previously that I had addressed the people publicly on the danger they were incurring by these useless and wholly unnecessary raids. When food was really required, which was once in five days, a foraging party would be sent to cut plantains in such abundance that they sufficed for several days, and twelve hours’ drying over a fire rendered the provisions portable. Their absolute inability to keep their promise, and the absolute impossibility of compelling them to do so, had been the cause of twelve deaths, and the thirteenth person was so seriously wounded that he was in imminent danger of dying. We had the small-pox raging among the Manyuema and Madis, and daily creating havoc among their numbers, and we had this fatal want of discipline, which was utterly irremediable in the forest region. The more vehemently I laboured to correct this disorder in the mob, the more conscious I became that only a death penalty on the raider would stop him; but then when the natives themselves executed infallibly the sentence, there was no necessity for me to do it.
Just above Manginni a canoe was capsized through pure carelessness. With our best divers we proceeded to the scene and recovered every article excepting a box of gunpowder and one of beads. The canoe was broken.
Passing by Mugwye’s, we reached Mambanga, and halted two days to prepare food for the uninhabited wilderness that stretches thence to Engwedde. At this camp Lakki or a “Hundred thousand,” a veritable Jack Cade, loud, noisy, blustering—the courier who in the midst of the midnight fray at Bandeya shouted to his comrades: “These fellows want meat, and meat they shall have, but it will be their own!”—heading a secret raiding party made up of choice friends, and returned twenty-four hours later with a curious and most singular wound from a poisoned arrow. Carbonate of ammonium was injected into the wound, and he was saved, but Lakki was firmly of the opinion that he was indebted to the green tobacco leaves employed to cover it.