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Loss of goats. Honey-hunters. A meal at last. The Babisa. The Mazitu again. Chitembo's. End of 1866. The new year. The northern brim of the great Loangwa Valley. Accident to chronometers. Meal gives out. Escape from a Cobra capella. Pushes for the Chambezé. Death of Chitané. Great pinch for food. Disastrous loss of medicine chest. Bead currency. Babisa. The Chambezé. Beaches Chitapangwa's town.
Also I awoke Stephen and explained the situation to him. "Capital!" he answered. "No doubt these are the Mazitu, and we have found them much more easily than we expected. People generally take such a lot of hunting for in this confounded great country."
"Has it occurred to you, John," I asked, "that if you really wish to visit Pongo-land here is perhaps what you would call a providential opportunity. Certainly none of these Mazitu will go, since they fear lest they should find a permanent peace inside of the Pongo. Well, you are a blood-brother to Bausi and can offer to play the part of Envoy Extraordinary, with us as the members of your staff."
Thereupon our silly Zulus seized their spears and formed up upon the bank. I slid down the steep side of the "Great Doctor" and ran forward, calling out that these were friends who came. "Friends or foes," answered their captain sullenly, "it is a pity that we should walk so far and not have a fight with those Mazitu dogs."
"I learned that on the western boundary of the Mazitu territory were great swamps; that beyond these swamps was a lake called Kirua, and beyond that a large and fertile land supposed to be an island, with a mountain in its centre. This land is known as Pongo, and so are the people who live there." "That is a native name for the gorilla, isn't it?" I asked.
"For a long while we stared at each other, for I was determined that I would not speak first or show any concern. At last he spoke in a low, deep voice and in Mazitu, or a language so similar that I found it easy to understand. "'Is not your name Dogeetah, O White Lord, and are you not a master of medicine? "'Yes, I answered, 'but who are you who dare to wake me from my sleep?
I asked of the two Mazitu guides, those same men whom we had borrowed from Hassan. "The land of our people, Chief," they answered, "which is bordered on one side by the bush and on the other by the great lake where live the Pongo wizards."
Many buffaloes feed here, and we viewed a herd of elands; they kept out of bow-shot only: a herd of the baama or hartebeest stood at 200 paces, and one was shot. While all were rejoicing over the meat we got news, from the inhabitants of a large village in full flight, that the Mazitu were out on a foray.
He then ran for his life and brought the news. He added that one of the men had called after him to tell the white people that they had come to kill them and the Mazitu who were their friends and to take away the white women. "Hassan-ben-Mohammed and his slavers!" I said, as Babemba appeared at the head of a number of soldiers, crying out: "The slave-dealing Arabs are here, lord Macumazana.
Farewell," and waiting for no answer, he departed with the tears running from his solitary eye. Ten minutes later the Mazitu bearers had also saluted us and gone, leaving us seated in that deserted camp surrounded by our baggage, and so far as I was concerned, feeling most lonely. Another ten minutes went by which we occupied in packing our personal belongings.
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