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These, we were told, were the relics of burnt witches. The caravan track we had now to travel on leads along the right bank of the Kingani valley, overlooking Uzegura, which, corresponding with Uzaramo, only on the other side of the Kigani, extends northwards to the Pangani river, and is intersected in the centre by the Wami river, of which more hereafter.
No wonder the old slave-dealer sniggered to himself; for we heard afterwards that he put in at Pangani the same night, after we were out of sight, beating down to the southward, and succeeded in running a cargo of the usual sort, the proceeds of the trip enabling him to retire from business and set up as a holy man for the rest of his life.
Accordingly, embarking at noon, as soon as the vessel could be got ready, we lay-to that night at Tombat, with a view of surprising the slaver next morning; but next day, on our arrival at Pangani, we heard that she had merely put in to provision there three days before, and had let immediately afterwards.
An hour later he was outside the German camp and headed for the little hill town of Wilhelmstal, the summer seat of government of German East Africa. Fraulein Bertha Kircher was lost. She was humiliated and angry it was long before she would admit it, that she, who prided herself upon her woodcraft, was lost in this little patch of country between the Pangani and the Tanga railway.
This was specially remarked by us on our long trek down the Pangani, and thus we were warned of the fever that lurked in the bright green lush meadows beside the water, and the "fly" that soon overtook our transport mules and cattle and the horses of General Brits' 2nd Mounted Brigade.
It was maddening to know that she had absolutely no knowledge of the direction she was traveling that she might be forging steadily further from the railway, deeper into the gloomy and forbidding country toward the Pangani; yet it was impossible to stop-she must go on.
At first we thought the columns of smoke along the mountain-sides beside the Pangani were signal fires for the enemy; but before long, when the roads were choked with victims of "fly" and horse-sickness, we realised the wisdom that induced the simple native to take his sheep and cattle up the hillsides and above the danger zone.
On my return to Zanzibar, the Brisk sailed for the Mauritius, but fortune sent Grant and myself on a different cruise. Sultan Majid, having heard that a slaver was lying at Pangani, and being anxious to show his good faith with the English, begged me to take command of one his vessels of war and run it down.
He started from Aruscha on 1 April, and by the 19th had driven the Germans from Kondoa Irangi, more than a hundred miles away. In May and June the other divisions cleared the Pave and Usambara mountains, reached Handeni and Kangata, and with naval assistance occupied Tanga, Pangani, Sadani Bay, and Bagamoyo in July and August almost without opposition.
We started early in the morning, and after crossing the Pangani, took to the beaten track and followed up the valley. Nearly at the outset we passed over the Luangera river, close to its junction with the Pangani, by a tree thrown across it. The stream, though not broad, is deep and sullen, and, by native report, is infested with crocodiles.
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