28 EARLY EAST AFRICA 



intolerance of the doubtless innocent Arabs who 

 had made Sena their home many years before, lost 

 no opportunity of accusing them of poisoning the 

 grass the horses ate, and of destroying the Euro- 

 peans with their Mohammedan enchantments. 

 The Captain-General for a long time refused to 

 pay heed to the churchman's denunciations, but at 

 length, alarmed by the constant and increasing 

 mortality, he ordered all the Asiatics to be 

 seized and put to the torture. In these cases there 

 is always one weaker than the rest, and the poor 

 wretch on this occasion, unable to bear the agony 

 of the screws, confessed to having seen poison put 

 down, and, in short, admitted all the offences with 

 which he and his luckless countrymen were accused. 

 Some of these were, therefore, burned at the stake, 

 others impaled, or put to death by torture, whilst 

 the rest, we are informed, were blown from the 

 mouths of cannon. 



About this time — probably whilst his representa- 

 tive was engaged in his negotiations with the Chief 

 of the Makaranga — Barreto undertook an expedi- 

 tion against the Mongas, and appears to have 

 inflicted great loss upon them and reduced them to 

 submission, but at the expense of many lives which 

 he could ill afford. In the course of this expedition 

 he was attacked, in the only serious encounter 

 fought, by an immense horde of the enemy, pre- 

 ceded by an aged female mabisalila, or witch, who 

 muttered damaging incantations as she advanced. 

 Believed to be impervious to human weapons, her 

 unlooked-for death from an arquebus baU was 

 a rude shock to her followers, who, it is said, 



