A MUTINY QUELLED. 429 



in an irresolute manner, as if they feared to take my part, or were of the same 

 mood as the party on the ant-hill. I was but thirty paces from the guide, and 

 throwing the barrel of the gun into the hollow of my left hand, I presented it 

 cocked at the guide, and called out to him, if he did not come to me at once I 

 would shoot him, giving him and his companions to understand that I had 

 twenty-four small bullets in the gun, and that I could blow them to pieces. In 

 a very reluctant manner they advanced towards me. When they were 

 sufficiently near I ordered them to halt ; but the guide, as he did so, brought 

 his gun to the present, with his finger on the trigger, and, with a treacherous 

 and cunning smile, which I perfectly understood, he asked what I wanted of 

 him. His companion, while he was speaking, was sidling to my rear, and was 

 impudently engaged in filling the pan of his musket with powder ; but a threat 

 to finish him if he did not go back to his companion, and there stand till I gave 

 him permission to move, compelled this villainous Thersite to execute the 

 ' right about ' with a promptitude which caused commendation from me. Then 

 facing my Ajax of a guide with my gun, I next requested him to lower his 

 gun if he did not wish to receive the contents of mine in his head ; and I do 

 not know but what the terrible catastrophe, warranted by stern necessity, had 

 occurred then and there, if Mabruki (bull-headed Mabruki, but my faithful 

 porter and faithfullest soldier) had not dashed the man's gun aside, asking him 

 how he dared level his gun at his master, and then throwing himself at my 

 feet, prayed me to forgive him. . . . When Mabruki's prayer for forgive- 

 ness was seconded by that of the principal culprit that I would overlook his 

 offence, I was able to act as became a prudent commander, though I felt some 

 remorse that I had not availed myself of the opportunity to punish the guide 

 and his companion as they eminently deserved. . . . However, as Bombay 

 could not bend himself to ask forgiveness, I came to the conclusion that it were 

 best he should be made to feel the penalty for stirring dissensions in the 

 expedition, and be brought to look with a more amiable face upon the scheme 

 of proceeding to Ujiji through Ukonongo and Ukawendi ; and I at at once 

 proceeded about it with such vigour, that Bombay's back will for as long a 

 time bear traces of the punishment which I administered to him, as his front 

 teeth do of that which Speke (he had been a servant of Speke's) rightfully 

 bestowed on him some eleven years ago." 



After a time the character of the scenery changed, and this, together with 

 rapid movement, and the almost certainty that Lake Tanganyika would be 

 speedily reached, had the effect of raising the spirits of every member of the 

 expedition. This is his description of the country within fourteen days of the 

 great lake, on whose shore he hoped to find the object of his search : — 



" Here and there were upheaved above the tree-tops sugar-loaf hills ; and 

 darkly blue, west of us, loomed a noble ridge of hills, which formed the 

 boundary between Kamiramba's territory and that of Utendi. Elephant tracks 



