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After crossing another low swampy flat, we reached a much larger group, or rather ramification, of hill-spurs pointing to the N'yanza, called Kisuere, and commanded by M'yombo, Rumanika's frontier officer. Immediately behind this, to the northward, commenced the kingdom of Unyoro; and here it was, they said, Baraka would branch off my line on his way to Kamrasi.
Khumel Khan, the tulwar man he whose boast it was that he could hew through two men's necks at one whistling sweep of his notched, curved cimeter had broken through with a dozen at his back. He had burst through the half-troop guarding the upper end of the defile, had left them red and reeling to count their dead, and the overfolding hill-spurs swallowed him. "Mr. Cunningham!
On the 11th of May, the third and fifth caravans, now united, followed up the right bank of the Mukondokwa, through fields of holcus, the great Mukondokwa ranges rising in higher altitude as we proceeded west, and enfolding us in the narrow river valley round about. We left Muniyi Usagara on our right, and soon after found hill-spurs athwart our road, which we were obliged to ascend and descend.
Emigrant Waziraha, who had been driven from their homes across the Kingani river by the slave-hunters, had taken possession of the place, and disposed their little conical-hut villages on the heights of the hill-spurs in such a picturesque manner, that one could not help hoping they would here at least be allowed to rest in peace and quietness.
As we passed through the one half-choked portal that still lay open, I thought, with heavy heart and bowed-down head, of the great fortress as I had seen it in the glory of its pride and strength, of the gallant warriors that had defended it, and the gay processions that I had seen winding in and out of its stately gates, making its hoary walls ring with songs and laughter, and, farther on, as we rode along the valley on that sad and yet eager three days' march of ours, I saw, on the hill-spurs about me, the black and ragged ruins of the fair cities and stately temples and palaces that I had seen crowded with happy throngs, bright with gold and colours, and so fair and strong that no man could have dreamed of the ruin the oppressor had brought upon them.
It is in consequence of these constantly-recurring troubles that the majority of the Wasagara villages are built on hill-spurs, where the people can the better resist attack, or, failing, disperse and hide effectually. The normal habitation is the small conical hut of grass. These compose villages, varying in number according to the influence of their head men.
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