THE DESERTED VILLAGE. 



185 



At dawn on the 23rd of August we resumed our 

 journey, and in 4 hrs 30' concluded the transit of the 

 lateral plain, which separates the Rufuta from the 

 Mukondokwa Range. The path wound over a wintry 

 land, green with vegetation only in the vicinity 

 of water. After struggling through a forest of canes, 

 we heard a ngoma, or large drum, which astonished 

 us, as we had not expected to find a village. Presently, 

 falling into a network of paths, we lost our way. After 

 long wandering we came upon a tobacco-field which the 

 Baloch and the sons of Ramji had finished stripping, 

 and conducted by some Wanyamwezi who had delayed 

 returning to guide us, in order to indulge their love for 

 drumming and plundering, we arrived at the debris of a 

 once flourishing village of Wasagara, called Mbumi from 

 its headman. A pitiable scene here presented itself. 

 The huts were torn and half-burnt, and the ground was 

 strewed with nets and drums, pestles and mortars, cots 

 and fragments of rude furniture ; and though no traces 

 of blood were observed, it was evident that a Commando 

 had lately taken place there. Said bin Salim opined this 

 ruin to be the work of Khalfan bin Salim, the youth who 

 had preceded us from Muhama ; ever suspicious, he saw 

 in it a plan adopted by the coast-Arab in order to raise 

 against us the people of the mountains. Kidogo, ob- 

 serving that the damage was at least ten days' old, 

 more acutely attributed it to the Moslem kidnappers 

 of Whinde, who, aided by the terrible Kisabengo, the 

 robber-chief of Ukami, near K'hutu, harry the country 

 with four or five hundred guns. Two of the wretched 

 villagers were seen lurking in the jungle, not daring to 

 revisit the wreck of their homes. Here again the Demon 

 of Slavery will reign over a solitude of his own creation. 

 Can it be that, by some inexplicable law, where Nature 



