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However brave the Wagunda may be within the strong enclosure with which they have surrounded their principal village, they are not exempt from the feeling of insecurity which fills the soul of a Mnyamwezi during war-time.
As the Mnyamwezi who caused this show of hostilities was beginning to speak, I caught him by the throat, and threatened to make his nose flatter if he attempted to speak again in my presence, and to shoot him first, if we should be forced to fight. The rascal was then pushed away into the rear.
For, without men, he was simply tantalized with the aspirations roused in him by the knowledge that he had abundance of means, which were irrealizable without carriers. All the wealth of London and New York piled before him were totally unavailable to him without the means of locomotion. No Mnyamwezi engages himself as carrier during war-time.
As neither of the kirangozis or Arabs knew this road, and its description came from one of my ancient pagazis, Hamed said he did not like to trust the guidance of such a large caravan in the hands of an old Mnyamwezi, and would therefore prefer to hear about the third road, before rendering his decision. The third road was the northern.
Most of the extortions practised upon the Arabs are suggested by these crafty renegades. Sheikh Hamed found that the Mnyamwezi was far more obdurate than the Sultan nothing under nine doti first-class cloths would redeem the donkeys. The business that day remained unsettled, and the night following was, as one may imagine, a very sleepless one to Hamed.
His servant took possession of his things, his rifle, clothes, and blanket, and moved off to the tembe of a Mnyamwezi, near Kisokweh, where he lived for three months, when he also died. That is all I know about it."
While on this subject, I may as well give here a sketch of each of the principal men whose names must often appear in the following chapters. According to rank, they consist of Bombay, Mabruki Burton, Asmani the guide, Chowpereh, Ulimengo, Khamisi, Ambari, Jumah, Ferajji the cook, Maganga the Mnyamwezi, Selim the Arab boy, and youthful Kalulu a gunbearer.
The men seemed to feel they were worth seeing, for I noticed that several assumed a more martial tread as they felt their royal Joho cloth tugging at their necks, as it was swept streaming behind by the wind. Maganga, a tall Mnyamwezi, stalked along like a very Goliah about to give battle alone, to Mirambo and his thousand warriors.
He proceeded to the Sultan to show him the absurdity of the damage claim, and to endeavour to make him accept one chukka, which would be more than double the worth of what grain the donkeys had consumed. But the Sultan was sitting on pombe; he was drunk, which I believe to be his normal state too drunk to attend to business, consequently his deputy, a renegade Mnyamwezi, gave ear to the business.
With most of the Wagogo chiefs lives a Mnyamwezi, as their right-hand man, prime minister, counsellor, executioner, ready man at all things save the general good; a sort of harlequin Unyamwezi, who is such an intriguing, restless, unsatisfied person, that as soon as one hears that this kind of man forms one of and the chief of a Mgogo sultan's council, one feels very much tempted to do damage to his person.
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