THE WOUNDED MAN. 



125 



Whilst Kannena was absent, on martial purposes 

 intent, I visited the sole sufferer in the fray, and after 

 seeing his wound washed, I forbade his friends to knead 

 the injured muscles, as they were doing, and to wrench 

 his right arm from side to side. A cathartic seemed to 

 have a beneficial effect. On the second day of his 

 accident he was able to rise. But these occurrences in 

 wild countries always cause long troubles. Kannena, 

 who obtained from Sultan Kanoni, as blood- money, a 

 small girl and a large sheep, declared that the man 

 might die, and insisted upon my forthwith depositing, 

 in case of such contingency, eight cloths, which, should 

 the wound not prove fatal, would be returned. The latter 

 clause might have been omitted ; in these lands, nescit 

 cloth missa reverti. As we were about to leave Ujiji, 

 Kannena claimed for the man's subsistence forty cloths, 

 — or as equivalent, three slaves and six cloths — which 

 also it was necessary to pay. A report was afterwards 

 spread that the wretch had sunk under his wound. 

 Valentine heard the intelligence with all that philosophy 

 which distinguishes his race when mishaps occur to any 

 but self. His prowess, however, cost me forty-eight 

 dollars, here worth at least £100 in England. Still I 

 had reason to congratulate myself that matters had not 

 been worse. Had the victim been a Mjiji freeman, the 

 trouble, annoyances, and expense would have been inter- 

 minable. Had he been a Mrundi, we should have been 

 compelled to fight our way, through a shower of arrows, 

 to the boats ; war would have extended to Ujiji, and 

 " England," as usual, would have had to pay the ex- 

 penses. When Said bin Salim heard at Kazeh a dis- 

 torted account of this mishap — of course it was re- 

 ported that " Haji Abdullah " killed the man he hit 



upon a notable device. Lurinda, the headman of Gungu, 



