on behalf of the survivors; so, leaving the ladies with Dr. Ramsay and the Makololo, Captain Wilson and Dr. Kirk went up the hills, in hopes of being able to render assistance, and on the way they met some of the Mission party at Soche’s.  The excessive fatigue that our friends had undergone in the voyage up to Chibisa’s in no wise deterred them from this further attempt for the benefit of their countrymen, but the fresh labour, with diminished rations, was too much for their strength.  They were reduced to a diet of native beans and an occasional fowl.  Both became very ill of fever, Captain Wilson so dangerously that his fellow-sufferer lost all hopes of his recovery.  His strong able-bodied cockswain did good service in cheerfully carrying his much-loved Commander, and they managed to return to the boat, and brought the two bereaved and sorrow-stricken ladies back to the “Pioneer.”

We learnt that the Bishop, wishing to find a shorter route down to the Shire, had sent two men to explore the country between Magomero and the junction of the Ruo; and in December Messrs. Proctor and Scudamore, with a number of Manganja carriers, left Magomero for the same purpose.  They were to go close to Mount Choro, and then skirt the Elephant Marsh, with Mount Clarendon on their left.  Their guides seem to have led them away to the east, instead of south; to the upper waters of the Ruo in the Shirwa valley, instead of to its mouth.  Entering an Anguru slave-trading village, they soon began to suspect that the people meant mischief, and just before sunset a woman told some of their men that if they slept there they would all be killed.  On their preparing to leave, the Anguru followed them and shot their arrows at the retreating party.  Two of the carriers were captured, and all the goods were taken by these robbers.  An arrow-head struck deep into the stock of Proctor’s gun; and the two missionaries, barely escaping with their lives, swam a deep river at night, and returned to Magomero famished and exhausted.

The wives of the captive carriers came to the Bishop day after day weeping and imploring him to rescue their husbands from slavery.  The men had been caught while in his service, no one else could be entreated; there was no public law nor any power superior to his own, to which an appeal could be made; for in him Church and State were, in the disorganized state of the country, virtually united.  It seemed to him to be clearly his duty to try and rescue these kidnapped members of the Mission family.  He accordingly invited the veteran Makololo to go with him on this somewhat hazardous errand.  Nothing could have been proposed to them which they would have liked better, and they went with alacrity to eat the sheep of the Anguru, only regretting that the enemy did not keep cattle as well.  Had the matter been left entirely in their hands, they would have made a clean sweep of that part of the country; but the Bishop restrained them, and went in an open manner, thus commending the measure to all the natives, as one of justice.  This deliberation, however, gave the delinquents a chance of escape.