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On the 14th we arrived at Ugunda, and soon after we had established ourselves comfortably in a hut which the chief lent us for our use, in came Ferajji and Chowpereh, bringing with them Sarmean and Uledi Manwa Sera, who, it will be recollected, were the two soldiers sent to Zanzibar with letters and who should Sarmean have in charge but the deserter Hamdallah, who decamped at Manyara, as we were going to Ujiji.
Our march lay over desolated clearings once occupied by Ka-mirambo's people, but who were driven away by Mkasiwa some ten years ago, during his warfare against Manwa Sera. Niongo, the brother of the latter, now waging war against Mbogo, had passed through Mwaru the day before we arrived, after being defeated by his enemy.
As he was notorious among the Arabs for having assisted Manwa Sera in his war against Sheikh Sny bin Amer, high eulogies upon whom have been written by Burton, and subsequently by Speke, and as he was the second most powerful chief in Ugogo, of course he was quite a curiosity to me.
It took you five years, I hear, to conquer and kill Manwa Sera, you will certainly not conquer Mirambo in less than a year.* I am a white man, accustomed to wars after a different style, I know something about fighting, but I never saw people run away from an encampment like ours at Zimbizo for such slight cause as you had.
Khamis bin Abdullah, a bold and brave man, ever ready to stand up for the privileges of the Arabs, and their rights to pass through any countries for legitimate trade, is the man who, in Speke's `Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile, is reported to have shot Maula, an old chief who sided with Manwa Sera during the wars of 1860; and who subsequently, after chasing his relentless enemy for five years through Ugogo and Unyamwezi as far as Ukonongo, had the satisfaction of beheading him, was now urging the Arabs to assert their rights against a chief called Mirambo of Uyoweh, in a crisis which was advancing.
It was said that Mbogo, Sultan of Mboga in Ukonongo, was at war with the brother of Manwa Sera, and as Mbogo was a large district of Ukonongo only two days' march from Marefu; fear of being involved in it was deterring old Hassan from proceeding. He advised me also not to proceed, as it was impossible to be able to do so without being embroiled in the conflict.
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