United States or Iraq ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Knowing the language well, they were extremely useful, and no one thought that they would desert, for they were free men their masters had been killed by the Mazitu and this circumstance, and their uniform good conduct, made us trust them more than we should have done any others who had been slaves.
"How if we take you, O Macumazana?" "How if I kill you both, O Harût and Marût? Fools, here are many brave men at my command, and if you or any with you want fighting it shall be given you in plenty. Hans, bid the Mazitu stand to their arms and summon Igeza and Bena." "Stay, Lord," said Harût, "and put down that weapon," for once more I had produced the pistol.
Our object now was to get away to the N.N.W., proceed parallel with Lake Nyassa, but at a considerable distance west of it, and thus pass by the Mazitu or Zulus near its northern end without contact ascertain whether any large river flowed into the Lake from the west visit Lake Moelo, if time permitted, and collect information about the trade on the great slave route, which crosses the Lake at its southern end, and at Tsenga and Kota-kota.
We might sail up the coast and go by Kilwa, as I had done on the search for the Holy Flower, or we might retrace the line of our retreat from the Mazitu country which ran through Zululand. Again, we might advance by whatever road we selected with a small army of drilled and disciplined retainers, trusting to force to break a way through to the Kendah.
Every morning I climbed the tallest of the "Doctors" and with my glasses looked over its broad yellow flood, searching the wide, bush-clad land beyond in the hope of discovering the Mazitu advancing to meet us.
When they fill their garners they can seldom reckon on eating the grain, for the Mazitu come when the harvest is over and catch as many able-bodied young persons as they can to carry away the corn. Thus it was in Scotland so far as security for life and property was concerned; but the Scotch were apt pupils of more fortunate nations.
Ten minutes or so later Babemba arrived with about fifty men, all the Mazitu soldiers who were left in the town. He reported that he had held the north gate as long as he could in order to gain time, and that the Arabs were breaking it in. I begged him to order the soldiers to pile up stones as a defence against the bullets and to lie down behind them. This he went to do.
The Zulus had taken off large numbers of women laden with corn; and, when driven back, had cut off the ears of a male prisoner, as a sort of credential that he had been with the Mazitu, and with grim humour sent him to tell Chinsamba "to take good care of the corn in the stockades, for they meant to return for it in a month or two."
Word Of The Day