Ugunda is a very large village in the district of Ugunda, which adjoins the southern frontier of Unyanyembe.  The village probably numbers four hundred families, or two thousand souls.  It is well protected by a tall and strong palisade of three-inch timber.  Stages have been erected at intervals above the palisades with miniature embrasures in the timber, for the muskets of the sharpshooters, who take refuge within these box-like stages to pick out the chiefs of an attacking force.  An inner ditch, with the sand or soil thrown up three or four feet high against the palings, serves as protection for the main body of the defenders, who kneel in the ditch, and are thus enabled to withstand a very large force.  For a mile or two outside the village all obstructions are cleared, and the besieged are thus warned by sharp-eyed watchers to be prepared for the defence before the enemy approaches within musket range.  Mirambo withdrew his force of robbers from before this strongly-defended village after two or three ineffectual attempts to storm it, and the Wagunda have been congratulating themselves ever since, upon having driven away the boldest marauder that Unyamwezi has seen for generations.

The Wagunda have about three thousand acres under cultivation around their principal village, and this area suffices to produce sufficient grain not only for their own consumption, but also for the many caravans which pass by this way for Ufipa and Marungu.

However brave the Wagunda may be within the strong enclosure with which they have surrounded their principal village, they are not exempt from the feeling of insecurity which fills the soul of a Mnyamwezi during war-time.  At this place the caravans are accustomed to recruit their numbers from the swarms of pagazis who volunteer to accompany them to the distant ivory regions south; but I could not induce a soul to follow me, so great was their fear of Mirambo and his Ruga-Raga.  They were also full of rumors of wars ahead.  It was asserted that Mbogo was advancing towards Ugunda with a thousand Wakonongo, that the Wazavira had attacked a caravan four months previously, that Simba was scouring the country with a band of ferocious mercenaries, and much more of the same nature and to the same intent.

On the 28th we arrived at a small snug village embosomed within the forest called Benta, three hours and a quarter from Ugunda.  The road led through the cornfields of the Wagunda, and then entered the clearings around the villages of Kisari, within one of which we found the proprietor of a caravan who was drumming up carriers for Ufipa.  He had been halted here two months, and he made strenuous exertions to induce my men to join his caravan, a proceeding that did not tend to promote harmony between us.  A few days afterwards I found, on my return, that he had given up the idea of proceeding south.  Leaving Kisari, we marched through a thin jungle of black jack, over sun-cracked ground with here and there a dried-up pool, the bottom of which was well tramped by elephant and rhinoceros.  Buffalo and zebra tracks were now frequent, and we were buoyed up with the hope that before long we should meet game.