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I took out my chart the one I had made myself in which I had perfect faith, and I sketched out a route which would enable us to reach Unyanyembe without paying a single cloth as tribute, and without encountering any worse thing than a jungle, by which we could avoid all the Wavinza and the plundering Wahha.
He had bought, to be his adopted brother, a slave of the Wahha tribe, a tall, athletic, fine-looking man, whose figure was of such excellent proportions that he would have been remarkable in any society; and it was for this youth, and not himself, he had made so much fuss and used so many devices to obtain the cloths.
After Mizohazy is the bold cape of Kabogo not the terrible Kabogo around whose name mystery has been woven by the superstitious natives not the Kabogo whose sullen thunder and awful roar were heard when crossing the Rugufu on our flight from the Wahha -but a point in Ukaranga, on whose hard and uninviting rocks many a canoe has been wrecked.
The Wahha slightly outnumbered my party; but, while they were only armed with bows and arrows, spears, and knob-sticks, we were armed with rifles, muskets, revolvers, pistols, and hatchets. All were seated, and deep silence was maintained by the assembly. The great plains around us were as still in this bright noon as if they were deserted of all living creatures.
"Well," said one of the Wahha, a fine, handsome, intelligent-looking youth, "it is our duty to the king to halt you here until we find out the truth of this. Will you walk to our village, and rest yourselves under the shade of our trees until we can send messengers to Kawanga?"
Will Mionvu say what I can do for him?" As these words were translated to him imperfectly, I suppose, but still, intelligibly the face of the Wahha showed how well they appreciated them. Once or twice I thought I detected something like fear, but my assertions that I desired peace and friendship with them soon obliterated all such feelings. Mionvu replied: "The white man tells me he is friendly.
Continuing our journey for three hours longer, through thin forests, over extensive beds of primitive rock, among fields of large boulders thickly strewn about, passing by numerous herds of buffalo, giraffe, and zebra, over a quaking quagmire which resembled peat, we arrived at the small stream of Sunuzzi, to a camping place only a mile removed from a large settlement of Wahha.
Villages rose to our view everywhere. Food was cheap, milk was plentiful, and the butter good. After a four hours' march, we crossed the Kanengi River, and entered the boma of Kahirigi, inhabited by several Watusi and Wahha. Here, we were told, lived the King of Uhha's brother. This announcement was anything but welcome, and I began to suspect I had fallen into another hornets' nest.
Does not the white man mean to pay the King's dues? Why does the white man halt in the road? Why will he not enter the village of Lukomo, where there is food and shade where we can discuss this thing quietly? Does the white man mean to fight? I know well he is stronger than we are. His men have guns, and the Wahha have but bows and arrows, and spears; but Uhha is large, and our villages are many.
Their intention was to land at Cape Tongwe, when they would be opposite the village of Itaga, whence, by traversing the uninhabited districts to the east, they would avoid the exactions of the roguish Wavinza and the plundering Wahha, and then strike the road by which Stanley had come. This plan was completely carried out.
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