The night passed without further alarm or disturbance of any kind, and at the usual hour of the morning the signal horns aroused the camp for the fatigue of another day’s march.
As the caravans were about leaving their camp, a group of Wahehe strolled up carelessly, similarly armed to the one who had met his fate so suddenly at the hands of Simba. As they were advancing towards the central gate of the camp, their quick eyes caught sight of the dead body of their comrade, and hastening towards it, they regarded it with wonder depicted on their faces. On stooping down to examine the head, they found it elongated into a hideous, formless shape, and not being able to contain their surprise, they questioned as to why and how it all came about.
Said Moto, who had keenly noted these signs, and had approached the group to answer their expected queries, “Ah, my brothers! some men are bad, very bad, and fools. What could have possessed this man to try and rob a caravan of 600 armed souls, I cannot say, unless it was the evil spirit. Do you see that big man with the great battle-axe in his belt, and a long ivory horn slung to his shoulder? That big man caught this thief in the tent of Amer bin Osman: he seized him by the feet, and whirling him around, he brought his head down flat on that stone.”
“Eyah! eyah!” said the astonished Wahehe. “He must be the evil spirit himself; but all thieves should die, and if, as you say, this man was caught at night in the camp, he has earned his death.”
“Say you so, my brothers?” said Moto; “then it is well. But listen to me; if the wind came to steal in our camp that big man would know it. He seems never to sleep, never to rest; he could smell a Mhehe at night afar off.”
“Eyah, eyah, ey-eyah!! He must be the evil spirit.” Saying which they departed, muttering to themselves and looking very much crestfallen.
The caravans journeyed on for several days after the incidents just related without meeting anything worthy of note in these pages. The western part of Uhehe is very uninteresting; one march follows another through the same triste scenery. A long reach of country to the right and the left, covered with short ripe grass, dotted with a ragged clump of thorn-bush here and there, or a solitary baobab stem, unbending in its vast girth and thickness of twigs, alone met the wearied eyes of the travellers. The Wahehe, the southern Wagogo, mixed with a stray Wakimbu family or two, permitted such a large caravan to pass without molestation, so that the march was getting exceedingly monotonous. But when, after crossing an unusually arid plain of some extent, they saw before them a long line of white rocky bluffs, the people began to whisper among themselves that “beyond those bluffs lay the lands of the populous Warori, who are mostly shepherds, and will not, if in the mood to quarrel, regard our numbers or strength.”
It was the tenth week of the departure of the Arabs from Simbamwenni when the above-mentioned bluffs were crossed, and the pastoral country of the Warori extended far before them in a succession of wooded hollows, bare uplands, and jungle-covered plains.
Those who knew Moto, the slave of Amer bin Osman, were startled at the remarkable physical resemblance he bore to the majority of the shepherds and villagers, who grouped themselves along the road to wonder at the wealth of the Arab caravans, and to make their rustic comments upon what they did not understand.
The Warori, however, did not seem disposed to dispute their advance, but stood contentedly gazing at the strange sight of some of the whiter faces among the Arabs. For instance, Khamis bin Abdullah and his son Khamis, Amer bin Osman and his son Selim, and the boys Abdullah and Mussoud. This paleness of complexion became often a matter of eager speculation, and as those who, fortunately or unfortunately, possessed white faces passed by, the straining of eyes and the narrow scrutiny were amusing to witness, and afforded Selim more especially some discomfort at first. The shepherds and villagers furthermore willingly bartered whatever the Arabs wished for red beads and American domestic. Milk, butter, and eggs were plentiful, which, to the Arab boys, were rare treats after the dry heat and desolate aspect of Western Uhehe. The arms which these shepherds carried were far more formidable than anything they had hitherto seen in the hands of savages. Their bows were longer and heavier, and their arrows longer and more cruelly barbed, and besides a lengthy broad-bladed spear, which resembled a broad Roman sword fastened to a staff, and half a dozen lighter spears—assegais—and a battle-axe, they carried a knife which might be likened to a broadsword for length and breadth.