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The Wakonongo enjoyed it very much, and laughed heartily as they proceeded on their way to search for the wild honey. On a piece of bark they carried a little fire with which they smoked the bees out from their nest in the great mtundu-trees.
It was asserted that Mbogo was advancing towards Ugunda with a thousand Wakonongo, that the Wazavira had attacked a caravan four months previously, that Simba was scouring the country with a band of ferocious mercenaries, and much more of the same nature and to the same intent.
We are Wakonongo, who came to your camp to accompany you to Mrera, and we are looking for honey." "Oh, to be sure, you are the Wakonongo. Yes Yes. Ah, it is all right now, I thought you might be Ruga-Ruga." So the two parties, instead of being on hostile terms with each other, burst out laughing.
Another had shot a buffalo-calf, and another had bagged a hartebeest; the Wakonongo related their laughable rencontre with me in the woods, and were lavish in their description of the stores of honey to be found in the woods; and all this time Selim and his youthful subs were trying their sharp teeth on the meat of a young pig which one of the hunters had shot, but which nobody else would eat, because of the Mohammedan aversion to pig, which they had acquired during their transformation from negro savagery to the useful docility of the Zanzibar freed-man.
"Ah, master, master, you will find the people will be too much for you, and that you will have to return. The Wa-manyara are bad, the Wakonongo are very bad, the Wazavira are the worst of all. You have come to this country at a bad time. It is war everywhere." And, indeed, judging from the tenor of the conversations around our camp-fires, it seemed but too evident.
The Wazavira, we were told by the Wakonongo of Mrera, were enemies to all Wangwana. In a narrow strip of marsh between Mwaru and Mrera, we saw a small herd of wild elephants. It was the first time I had ever seen these animals in their native wildness, and my first impressions of them I shall not readily forget. I am induced to think that the elephant deserves the title of "king of beasts."
The Arabs being "Wakonongo" travellers, whom they saw every day, enjoyed a complete immunity from the vexations which we had to endure. The Sultan of Matamburu, a man of herculean form, and massive head well set on shoulders that might vie with those of Milo, proved to be a very reasonable person.
There were nine bleached skulls, stuck on the top of as many poles, before the principal gate of entrance, which told us of existing feuds between the Wakonongo and the Wazavira. This latter tribe dwelt in a country a few marches west of us; whose territory we should have to avoid, unless we sought another opportunity to distinguish ourselves in battle with the natives.
The presence of the chief in the camp was followed by a deep silence that I was prevailed upon to go outside to see what had caused it. The chief's words were few, and to the point. He said, "To your tembes, Wagogo to your tembes! Why, do you come to trouble the Wakonongo: What have you to do with them? To your tembes: go!
"The roads are bad; they are all stopped; the Ruga-Ruga are out in the forests; the Wakonongo are coming from the south to help Mirambo; the Washensi are at war, one tribe against another." My men are getting dispirited, they have imbibed the fears of the Arabs and the Wanyamwezi. Bombay begins to feel that I had better go back to the coast, and try again some other time.
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