On arriving, after having delivered your letter, and having told and heard the news, I asked the Pasha when he proposed moving. He said he must speak to his officers first. This morning a meeting was called, and it was decided that we should start to-morrow for Kavalli’s, taking two days on the road.
The Pasha will come to see you, will perhaps stay a few days in your camp, and then return and bring up his daughter and the rest of his loads, which amount to about 200, which consist of millet, salt, sesame, &c. The officers will only bring twenty loads, as they are merely coming up to talk with you for bringing up their troops and goods. The clerks bring up all their loads and remain with us.
Both the steamers return to Mswa on the 18th, to bring up the rest of the people and goods from that station, as well as to bring up corn for the supply of the Lake camp.
On the arrival of the steamers at Mswa, the irregulars (some fifty guns) will march overhead to Kavalli’s with such women as are able to walk well, and the steamers, on their return here, will at once take the officers down to Wadelai.
The Pasha has brought sixty tusks of ivory; the surplus will doubtless be useful. Though there is a day’s delay, I do not regret it, as both the Zanzibaris and myself were fairly worn out when we reached here yesterday, and had we started to-day there would, I fear, have been many sore feet. In spite, however, of our fatigue, the Zanzibaris rushed madly into the camp, howling like demons. They went through the usual mad exercises with imaginary enemies, and then drew up in line before the Pasha. The soldiers drew up in correct form and saluted him also. He was very pleased, and asked me to say a few words to them, expressing his thanks to them for all the trials they have gone through to help him, which I did, as well as I was able, in my broken Ki-swa-hili. The Pasha set all the women to grind corn, and I served out two cups apiece to them, the Soudanese, Manyuema, and natives. To-day Saat Tato, the hunter, and another, have brought in two kudu, and a springbok, so that they have plenty to eat. I was much amused to see how the slothful ugly Soudanese stared at the mad antics of the Zanzibaris, with the sort of expression that said, What sort of people can these boisterous, unruly Zanzibaris be?
I find Casati more impossible than ever. I asked him whether he would go with us to-morrow, and he replied he would rather wait. I then asked, “How many loads have you?”
“Oh,” he answered, “you know I have very few things. All my things were taken by Kabba-Rega; perhaps I may want eighty carriers.”
Vita, the apothecary, wants forty carriers, and Marco, the Greek trader, wants sixty, so at this rate our Zanzibaris will be killed between here and Kavalli’s. The Pasha remonstrated with Casati for taking all his grinding-stones, earthen jars, bedsteads for his boys and women, &c., upon which he said:—
“Mr. Stanley has offered to take all our loads.”
These people have no conscience, and would rather load down our long-suffering people than throw away a single load of rubbish which they will eventually be obliged to discard.