Our hopes were turned to the Rovuma, as a free highway into Lake Nyassa and the vast interior.  A steamer was already ordered for the Lake, and the Bishop, seeing the advantageous nature of the highlands which stretch an immense way to the north, was more anxious to be near the Lake and the Rovuma, than the Shire.  When he decided to settle at Magomero, it was thought desirable, to prevent the country from being depopulated, to visit the Ajawa chief, and to try and persuade him to give up his slaving and kidnapping courses, and turn the energies of his people to peaceful pursuits.

On the morning of the 22nd we were informed that the Ajawa were near, and were burning a village a few miles off.  Leaving the rescued slaves, we moved off to seek an interview with these scourges of the country.  On our way we met crowds of Manganja fleeing from the war in front.  These poor fugitives from the slave hunt had, as usual, to leave all the food they possessed, except the little they could carry on their heads.  We passed field after field of Indian corn or beans, standing ripe for harvesting, but the owners were away.  The villages were all deserted:  one where we breakfasted two years before, and saw a number of men peacefully weaving cloth, and, among ourselves, called it the “Paisley of the hills,” was burnt; the stores of corn were poured out in cartloads, and scattered all over the plain, and all along the paths, neither conquerors nor conquered having been able to convey it away.  About two o’clock we saw the smoke of burning villages, and heard triumphant shouts, mingled with the wail of the Manganja women, lamenting over their slain.  The Bishop then engaged us in fervent prayer; and, on rising from our knees, we saw a long line of Ajawa warriors, with their captives, coming round the hill-side.  The first of the returning conquerors were entering their own village below, and we heard women welcoming them back with “lillilooings.”  The Ajawa headman left the path on seeing us, and stood on an anthill to obtain a complete view of our party.  We called out that we had come to have an interview with them, but some of the Manganja who followed us shouted “Our Chibisa is come:”  Chibisa being well known as a great conjurer and general.  The Ajawa ran off yelling and screaming, “Nkondo!  Nkondo!” (War!  War!) We heard the words of the Manganja, but they did not strike us at the moment as neutralizing all our assertions of peace.  The captives threw down their loads on the path, and fled to the hills:  and a large body of armed men came running up from the village, and in a few seconds they were all around us, though mostly concealed by the projecting rocks and long grass.  In vain we protested that we had not come to fight, but to talk with them.  They would not listen, having, as we remembered afterwards, good reason, in the cry of “Our Chibisa.”  Flushed with recent victory over three villages, and confident of an easy