On the 5th, a detachment of Arabs and slaves, seven hundred strong, scoured the surrounding country, and carried fire and devastation up to the boma of Wilyankuru.

On the 6th, Soud bin Sayd and about twenty other young Arabs led a force of five hundred men against Wilyankuru itself, where it was supposed Mirambo was living.  Another party went out towards the low wooded hills, a short distance north of Zimbizo, near which place they surprised a youthful forest thief asleep, whose head they stretched backwards, and cut it off as though he were a goat or a sheep.  Another party sallied out southward, and defeated a party of Mirambo’s “bush-whackers,” news of which came to our ears at noon.

In the morning I had gone to Sayd bin Salim’s tembe, to represent to him how necessary it was to burn the long grass in the forest of Zimbizo, lest it might hide any of the enemy; but soon afterwards I had been struck down with another attack of intermittent fever, and was obliged to turn in and cover myself with blankets to produce perspiration; but not, however, till I had ordered Shaw and Bombay not to permit any of my men to leave the camp.  But I was told soon afterwards by Selim that more than one half had gone to the attack on Wilyankuru with Soud bin Sayd.

About 6 P.M. the entire camp of Zimbizo was electrified with the news that all the Arabs who had accompanied Soud bin Sayd had been killed; and that more than one-half of his party had been slain.  Some of my own men returned, and from them I learned that Uledi, Grant’s former valet, Mabruki Khatalabu (Killer of his father), Mabruki (the Little), Baruti of Useguhha, and Ferahan had been killed.  I learned also that they had succeeded in capturing Wilyankuru in a very short time, that Mirambo and his son were there, that as they succeeded in effecting an entrance, Mirambo had collected his men, and after leaving the village, had formed an ambush in the grass, on each side of the road, between Wilyankuru and Zimbizo, and that as the attacking party were returning home laden with over a hundred tusks of ivory, and sixty bales of cloth, and two or three hundred slaves, Mirambo’s men suddenly rose up on each side of them, and stabbed them with their spears.  The brave Soud had fired his double-barrelled gun and shot two men, and was in the act of loading again when a spear was launched, which penetrated through and through him:  all the other Arabs shared the same fate.  This sudden attack from an enemy they believed to be conquered so demoralized the party that, dropping their spoil, each man took to his heels, and after making a wide detour through the woods, returned to Zimbizo to repeat the dolorous tale.

The effect of this defeat is indescribable.  It was impossible to sleep, from the shrieks of the women whose husbands had fallen.  All night they howled their lamentations, and sometimes might be heard the groans of the wounded who had contrived to crawl through the grass unperceived by the enemy.  Fugitives were continually coming in throughout the night, but none of my men who were reported to be dead, were ever heard of again.