68 ACROSS AFRICA. [Chap. 



June. owner, or by tying a knot in any portion of liis clothing ; and 

 i^*^^- the original owner can not redeem liim except by paying his 

 full value, and he is invariably obliged to promise not to use 

 him harshly. 



From this place , we dispatched a party of forty men to 

 Mbumi, for food to take us to Mpwapwa ; but some of them 

 returned a day later with a woful story of disaster and death. 



When sifted to the bottom, the affair proved much less than 

 they represented, though bad enough in all conscience. 



It appeared that the party arrived safely at Mbumi, and com- 

 pleted the purchase of the corn we required, when a false alarm 

 w^as raised that some of the wilder tribes living in the hills 

 were coming to attack the villagers. There was, naturally, 

 very much excitement, in the midst of which one of our men's 

 rifles was discharged by accident, and shot a native through 

 the body, killing him on the spot. 



The people then turned u2:>on our party, and those who did 

 not escape by running were seized and put in chowkie, and the 

 corn that had been collected was lost. 



Syde ibn Omar, the Arab whose son visited us at Kehenneko, 

 lived near Mbumi, and wrote to acquaint us of the occurrence, 

 and afterward came in person, and was of the greatest possible 

 assistance in arranging the affair. Still, this unlucky business 

 delayed us, and cost three loads of cloth. But we were fortu- 

 nate in getting off so easily, for many caravans have lost very 

 heavily in conflicts with natives of the Useghara Mountains, 

 arising from far more trivial circumstances than the death of a 

 man. 



By a caravan passing down from TJnyanyembe, we sent let- 

 ters and also Moffat's Bil)le, watch, and an old rifle that had 

 belonged to his grandfather. Dr. Moffat, to be forwarded from 

 Zanzibar to his mother at Durban. 



Three up caravans also arrived, and attached themselves to 

 us in order to benefit by the j^rotection of numbers in jjassing 

 through Ugogo. 



One was composed of Wanyamwezi taking home the pro- 

 ceeds of the ivory they had sold at the coast. But on passing 

 Eehenneko, two or three days after we left, they were attacked 

 and dispersed by the chief and people of that place ; and, ac- 



