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Sending for Hans, I told him to take one of the Mazitu I dared not risk them both for they were our guides and another of the natives whom we had borrowed from Hassan, a bold fellow who knew all the local languages, and creep down to the slavers' camp as soon as it was quite dark.

Having laid aside our doubts, we proceeded on the journey comfortably enough, being well provided with bearers to take the place of those who had run away. Babemba, accompanied by a single orderly, travelled with us, and from him we collected much information. It seemed that the Mazitu were a large people who could muster from five to seven thousand spears.

Mavovo and Hans stood behind us, the latter supporting himself with his large bamboo stick. Komba obeyed. Especially did he narrate how, in obedience to a message which he had received from the Motombo, he had invited the white lords to Pongo-land, and even accepted them as envoys from the Mazitu when none would respond to King Bausi's invitation to fill that office.

To prevent the Mazitu starving them they cultivate small round patches placed at wide intervals in the forest, with which the country is covered. The spot, some ten yards or a little more in diameter, is manured with ashes and planted with this millet and pumpkins, in order that should Mazitu come they may be unable to carry off the pumpkins, or gather the millet, the seed of which is very small.

A leopard took a dog out of a house next to ours; he had bitten a man before, but not mortally. 29th August, 1866. The Mazitu had chased Jumbé up the hills: had they said, on to an island, I might have believed them. 30th August,1866. The fear which the English have inspired in the Arab slave-traders is rather inconvenient.

While roasting and eating meat I went forward with Mpanda to get men from Chimuna to carry the rest, but was soon recalled. Another crowd were also in full retreat; the people were running straight to the Zalanyama range regardless of their feet, making a path for themselves through the forest; they had escaped from the Mazitu that morning; "they saw them!"

I mean the white lord with a long beard who among you black people is called Dogeetah." Babemba started. "You are the brethren of Dogeetah! How comes it then that you never mentioned his name before, and when is he going to meet you here? Know that Dogeetah is a great man among us, for with him alone of all men the king has made blood-brotherhood. As the king is, so is Dogeetah among the Mazitu."

"For several reasons, Allan, of which the best is that it was impossible. The Mazitu swear that if anyone sees that flower he is put to death. Indeed, when they found that I had a bloom of it, they forced me to move to the other side of the country seventy miles away. So I thought that I would wait till I met with some companions who would accompany me.

If we had been obliged to stop much longer among the Mazitu, I would have satisfied myself as to this matter by going to look. But that chance never came to me until some years later when, under curious circumstances, I was again destined to visit this part of Africa. To return to my story.

They answered through the two Mazitu that they had nowhere to go, and did not wish to fall again into the power of Hassan, of whom they spoke literally with shudders, pointing the while to their scarred backs and the marks of the slave yokes upon their necks. Their protestations seemed and indeed proved to be sincere, but of this of course we could not then be sure.