3IO THE ZANZIBAR! 



of ammunition and ivory, and marched off. They sold their 

 ivory for food and fled back towards the coast. They stormed 

 every village they came to which they could attack with safety. 

 They captured women from one tribe and sold them for food 

 or ivory to the next. Thus looting, massacring, and murdering, 

 they swept down to the coast, leaving a blood-stained trail 

 behind them. The whole story is a terrible one. The actual 

 leader was a man named Wadi Kombo, who has long since 

 been called upon to answer for his crimes. But there is good 

 reason to believe that my faithful Wadi not only joined, but 

 helped to instigate the mutiny. He had been wrongfully 

 punished, the injustice rankled in his mind, and he took his 

 revenge. 



This had happened several years before, but Wadi's hatred 

 of mission boys was still keen and bitter. Once a drunken 

 native was rolling round the camp, trying to steal, and generally 

 misbehaving. I threatened to have him kicked out. He 

 pulled himself up in a ludicrous effort to assume an air of 

 dignity, and said he was no mere up-country savage {inslienzi), 

 for he had been to the coast. " Yes," remarked Wadi, who was 



standing by, " I thought he had been brought up at ," 



mentioning a well-known mission station. On another occasion 

 he caught my tent-boy drinking some of my water when there 

 was none in camp, and Wadi had emptied his calabash into my 

 water-bottle. He was very angry and kicked the boy about. 

 Suddenly he remembered what a terrible breach of camp 

 discipline he was committing. A headman has the right to 

 flog any porter or Askari during the absence of the leader of the 

 expedition, reporting it to him when he returns ; but he may not 

 flog the leader's personal servants, such as tent -boy or cook. 

 If necessary he can put them in irons, but he must not flog 

 them. For a mere porter, then, like Wadi to do this was a 

 grievous sin. He suddenly realised the enormity of his offence 

 and came half-sobbing to me to apologise. He explained that 

 he had a little water that he did not want, so, rather than throw 

 it away, he had poured it into my bottle. Then he had seen 

 my boy drinking it, became angry, and hit him. He begged 

 humbly for forgiveness, which was readily granted. Wadi saw 

 I was not angry, so, as he left the door of the tent, he looked 

 back and remarked, " You will forgive me, won't you, Bwana ? 



