August 22nd.—­We were stringing beads this morning, when, about 10 A.M., we heard a continued firing from the direction of Tabora.  Rushing out from our work to the front door facing Tabora, we heard considerable volleying, and scattered firing, plainly; and ascending to the top of my tembe, I saw with my glasses the smoke of the guns.  Some of my men who were sent on to ascertain the cause came running back with the information that Mirambo had attacked Tabora with over two thousand men, and that a force of over one thousand Watuta, who had allied themselves with him for the sake of plunder, had come suddenly upon Tabora, attacking from opposite directions.

Later in the day, or about noon, watching the low saddle over which we could see Tabora, we saw it crowded with fugitives from that settlement, who were rushing to our settlement at Kwihara for protection.  From these people we heard the sad information that the noble Khamis bin Abdullah, his little protege, Khamis, Mohammed bin Abdullah, Ibrahim bin Rashid, and Sayf, the son of Ali, the son of Sheikh, the son of Nasib, had been slain.

When I inquired into the details of the attack, and the manner of the death of these Arabs, I was told that after the first firing which warned the inhabitants of Tabora that the enemy was upon them, Khamis bin Abdullah and some of the principal Arabs who happened to be with him had ascended to the roof of his tembe, and with his spyglass he had looked towards the direction of the firing.  To his great astonishment he saw the plain around Tabora filled with approaching savages, and about two miles off, near Kazima, a tent pitched, which he knew to belong to Mirambo, from its having been presented to that chief by the Arabs of Tabora when they were on good terms with him.

Khamis bin Abdullah descended to his house saying, “Let us go to meet him.  Arm yourselves, my friends, and come with me.”  His friends advised him strongly sat to go out of his tembe; for so long as each Arab kept to his tembe they were more than a match for the Ruga Ruga and the Watuta together.  But Khamis broke out impatiently with, “Would you advise us to stop in our tembes, for fear of this Mshensi (pagan)?  Who goes with me?” His little protege, Khamis,, son of a dead friend, asked to be allowed to be his gun-bearer;.  Mohammed bin Abdulluh, Ibrahim bin Rashid, and Sayf, the son of Ali, young Arabs of good families, who were proud to live with the noble Khamis, also offered to go with him.  After hastily arming eighty of his slaves, contrary to the advice of his prudent friends, he sallied out, and was soon face to face with his cunning and determined enemy Mirambo.  This chief, upon seeing the Arabs advance towards him, gave orders to retreat slowly.  Khamis, deceived by this, rushed on with his friends after them.  Suddenly Mirambo ordered his men to advance upon them in a body, and at the sight of the precipitate rush upon their party, Khamis’s slaves incontinently took to their