I took care not to give any advice, but said, if I had been or was in his place, I would have sent or would send back Bin Juma’s captives, to show that I disapproved of his act—­the first in the war—­and was willing to make peace with Chapi.  He said that he did not know that Bin Juma would capture these people; that Bin Juma had met some natives with fish, and took ten by force, that the natives, in revenge, caught three Banyamwezi slaves, and Bin Juma then gave one slave to them as a fine, but Mohamad did not know of this affair either.  I am of opinion, however, that he was fully aware of both matters, and Mpamari’s caracoling showed that he knew it all, though now he denies it.

Bin Juma is a long, thin, lanky Suaheli, six feet two high, with a hooked nose and large lips:  I told Mohamad that if he were to go with us to Manyuema, the whole party would be cut off.  He came here, bought a slave-boy, and allowed him to escape; then browbeat Chapi’s man about him (and he says, three others); and caught ten in lieu of him, of which Mohamad restored six:  this was the origin of the war.  Now that we are in the middle of it, I must do as Mohamad does in going off either by day or by night.  It is unreasonable to ask my advice now, but it is felt that they have very unjustifiably placed me in a false position, and they fear that Syed Majid will impute blame to them, meanwhile Syde bin Habib sent a private message to me to come with his men to him, and leave this party.

I perceive that the plan now is to try and clear our way of Chapi, and then march, but I am so thoroughly disgusted with this slave-war, that I think of running the risk of attack by the country people, and go off to-morrow without Mohamad Bogharib, though I like him much more than I do Mpamari or Syde bin Habib.  It is too glaring hypocrisy to go to the Koran for guidance while the stolen women, girls, and fish, are in Bin Juma’s hands.

8th and 9th December, 1868.—­I had to wait for the Banyamwezi preparing food:  Mohamad has no authority over them, or indeed over anyone else.  Two Babemba men came in and said that they had given up fighting, and begged for their wives, who had been captured by Syde’s people on their way here:  this reasonable request was refused at first, but better counsels prevailed, and they were willing to give something to appease the anger of the enemy, and sent back six captives, two of whom were the wives prayed for.

[At last he makes a start on the 11th of December with the Arabs, who are bound eastwards for Ujiji.  It is a motley group, composed of Mohamad and his friends, a gang of Unyamwezi hangers-on, and strings of wretched slaves yoked together in their heavy slave-sticks.  Some carry ivory, others copper, or food for the march, whilst hope and fear, misery and villainy, may be read off on the various faces that pass in line out of this country, like a serpent dragging its accursed folds away from the victim it has paralysed with its fangs.]