98 ACROSS AFRICA. [Chap. 



July, our fire-arms, telling us that we trusted in guns which would be 

 18Y3. useless after the first discharge, when men with spears could 

 fall upon us and annihilate us. But upon initiating them into 

 the mysteries of breech-loaders and fixed bayonets, they altered 

 their tone, and came to the conclusion that our fighting power 

 was very considerable, and that it would be dangerous to attack 

 us except in large numbers. 



Having settled mhongo, and written some letters which we 

 intrusted to the charge of the leader of Said ibn Salim's cara- 

 van, we left Mdaburu, on the 18th of July, for the Mgunda 

 Mkali, or hot field, which lay between us and Unyanyembe. 



In passing through Ugogo, we had altogether paid as tribute 

 seventy - seven colored cloths, more than two hundred doti of 

 common cloth, a coil of wire, and three pounds of beads. 



This at Zanzibar prices would amount to five hundred dol- 

 lars, and in Ugogo represented nearly double that amount ; but, 

 happily, we were now leaving the mhongo-paying district. 



