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If he refuses thirty, give him forty; then go up to eighty, slowly. Make plenty of talk; not one doti more. I swear to you I will shoot Mionvu if he demands more than eighty. Go, and remember to be wise." I will cut the matter short.
When about replying, the words of General Sherman, which I heard him utter to the chiefs of the Arapahoes and Cheyennes at North Platte, in 1867, came to my mind; and something of their spirit I embodied in my reply to Mionvu, Mutware of Kimenyi. "Mionvu, the great Mutware, asks me if I have come for war. When did Mionvu ever hear of white men warring against black men?
Recovering from our astonishment, which was almost indescribable, we offered TEN. "Ten! to the King of Uhha! Impossible. You do not stir from Lukomo until you pay us one hundred!" exclaimed Mionvu, in a significant manner. I returned no answer, but went to my hut, which Mionvu had cleared for my use, and Bombay, Asmani, Mabruki, and Chowpereh were invited to come to me for consultation.
I can kill Mionvu and his principal men myself, and you can slay all those howlers out there without much trouble. If Mionvu and his principal were dead we should not be troubled much, and we could strike south to the Mala-garazi, and go west to Ujiji." "No, no, dear master, don't think of it for a moment. If we went neat the Malagarazi we should come across Lokanda-Mira."
Mionvu must understand that the white men are different from the black. White men do not leave their country to fight the black people, neither do they come here to buy ivory or slaves.
Let him look about him everywhere all is Uhha, and our country extends much further than he can see or walk in a day. The King of Uhha is strong; yet he wishes friendship only with the white man. Will the white man have war or peace?" A deep murmur of assent followed this speech of Mionvu from his people, and disapprobation, blended with a certain uneasiness; from my men.
Why does he not come to our village? Why does he stop on the road? The sun is hot. Mionvu will not speak here any more. If the white man is a friend he will come to the village." "We must stop now. It is noon. You have broken our march. We will go and camp in your village," I said, at the same time rising and pointing to the men to take up their loads.
The white people are different from the Arabs and Wangwana; the white people know everything, and are very strong. When they fight, the Arabs and the Wangwana run away. We are stronger than the Wahha. Mionvu has spoken the truth, yet we do not wish to fight. I could kill Mionvu now, yet I talk to him as to a friend. I wish to be a friend to Mionvu, and to all black people.
If I met many more like Mionvu I had not enough to take me to Ujiji, and, though we were said to be so near, Livingstone seemed to me to be just as far as ever. We crossed the Pombwe, and then struck across a slowly-undulating plain rising gradually to mountains on our right, and on our left sinking towards the valley of the Malagarazi, which river was about twenty miles away.
During the career recorded in the foregoing book, I have bidden many farewells; to the Wagogo, with their fierce effrontery; to Mionvu, whose blackmailing once so affected me; to the Wavinza, whose noisy clatter promised to provoke dire hostilities; to the inhospitable Warundi; to the Arab slave-traders and half-castes; to all fevers, remittent, and intermittent; to the sloughs and swamps of Makata; to the brackish waters and howling wastes; to my own dusky friends and followers, and to the hero-traveller and Christian gentleman, David Livingstone.
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