10th March, 1871.—­Mohamad’s people are said to have gone to Luapanya, a powerful chief, who told them they were to buy all their ivory from him:  he had not enough, and they wanted to go on to a people who have ivory door-posts; but he said, “You shall go neither forward nor backwards, but remain here,” and he then called an immense body of archers, and said, “You must fight these.”  The consequence was they killed Luapanya and many of his people, called Bahika, then crossed a very large river, the Morombya or Morombwe, and again the Pembo River, but don’t seem to have gone very far north.  I wished to go from this in canoes, but Kasonga has none, so I must tramp for five or six days to Moene Lualaba to buy one, if I have credit with Abed.

11th March, 1871.—­I had a long, fierce oration from Amur, in which I was told again and again that I should be killed and eaten—­the people wanted a “white one” to eat!  I needed 200 guns; and “must not go to die.”  I told him that I was thankful for advice, if given by one who had knowledge, but his vehement threats were dreams of one who had never gone anywhere, but sent his slaves to kill people.  He was only frightening my people, and doing me an injury.  I told him that Baker had only twelve people, and came near to this:  to this he replied “Were the people cannibals?” &c. &c.

I left this noisy demagogue, after saying I thanked him for his warnings, but saw he knew not what he was saying.  The traders from Ujiji are simply marauders, and their people worse than themselves, they thirst for blood more than for ivory, each longs to be able to tell a tale of blood, and the Manyuema are an easy prey.  Hassani assaulted the people at Moene Lualaba’s, and now they keep to the other bank, and I am forced to bargain with Kasonga for a canoe, and he sends to a friend for one to be seen on the 13th.  This Hassani declared to me that he would not begin hostilities, but he began nothing else; the prospect of getting slaves overpowers all else, and blood flows in horrid streams.  The Lord look on it!  Hassani will have some tale to tell Mohamad Bogharib.

[At the outset of his explorations Livingstone fancied that there were degrees in the sufferings of slaves, and that the horrors perpetrated by the Portuguese of Tette were unknown in the system of slave hunting which the Arabs pursue:  we now see that a further acquaintance with the slave-trade of the Interior has restored the balance of infamy, and that the same tale of murder and destruction is common wherever the traffic extends, no matter by whom it is carried on.]

15th March, 1871.—­Falsehood seems ingrained in their constitutions:  no wonder that in all this region they have never tried to propagate Islamism; the natives soon learn to hate them, and slaving, as carried on by the Kilwans and Ujijians, is so bloody, as to prove an effectual barrier against proselytism.

My men are not come back:  I fear they are engaged in some broil.  In confirmation of what I write, some of the party here assaulted a village of Kasonga’s, killed three men and captured women and children; they pretended that they did not know them to be his people, but they did not return the captives.