25th November, 1868.—­The Babemba kept off on the third day, and the Arabs are thinking it will be a good thing if we get out of the country unscathed.  Men were sent off on the night of the 23rd to Syde bin Habib for powder and help.  Mohamad Bogharib is now unwilling to take the onus of the war:  he blames Mpamari, and Mpamari blames him; I told Mohamad that the war was undoubtedly his work, inasmuch as Bin Juma is his man, and he approved of his seizing the women.

He does not like this, but it is true; he would not have entered a village of Casembe or Moamba or Chikumbi as he did Chapi’s man’s village:  the people here are simply men of more metal than he imagined, and his folly in beginning a war in which, if possible, his slaves will slip through his hands is apparent to all, even to himself.  Syde sent four barrels of gunpowder and ten men, who arrived during last night.

27th November, 1868.—­Two of Muabo’s men came over to bring on a parley; one told us that he had been on the south side of the village before, and heard one man say to another “mo pige” (shoot him).  Mpamari gave them a long oration in exculpation, but it was only the same everlasting, story of fugitive slaves.  The slave-traders cannot prevent them from escaping, and impudently think that the country people ought to catch them, and thus be their humble servants, and also the persecutors of their own countrymen!  If they cannot keep them, why buy them—­why put their money into a bag with holes?

It is exactly what took place in America—­slave-owners are bad neighbours everywhere.  Canada was threatened, England browbeaten, and the Northerners all but kicked on the same score, and all as if property in slaves had privileges which no other goods have.  To hear the Arabs say of the slaves after they are fled, “Oh, they are bad, bad, very bad!” (and they entreated me too to free them from the yoke), is, as the young ladies say, “too absurd.”  The chiefs also who do not apprehend fugitives, they too are “bad.”

I proposed to Mohamad Bogharib to send back the women seized by Bin Juma, to show the Babemba that he disapproved of the act and was willing to make peace, but this was too humiliating; I added that their price as slaves was four barrels of gunpowder or 160 dollars, while slaves lawfully bought would have cost him only eight or ten yards of calico each.  At the conclusion of Mpamari’s speech the four barrels of gunpowder were exhibited, and so was the Koran, to impress them (Muabo’s people) with an idea of their great power.

28th and 29th November, 1868.—­It is proposed to go and force our way if we can to the north, but all feel that that would be a fine opportunity for the slaves to escape, and they would not be loth to embrace it; this makes it a serious matter, and the Koran is consulted at hours which are auspicious.

30th November, 1868.—­Messengers sent to Muabo to ask a path, or in plain words protection from him; Mpamari protests his innocence of the whole affair.