152 Wanderings in Eastern Africa, 
Alone in the heart of an African jungle, and in the 
dead of night, with a savage, mad as a fiend, was not 
a pleasant experience ; it was a break in upon our 
monotony that, however spicy at the time, we did not 
wish to have repeated. When we were at our wits' end 
what to do with him, he made off once more into the 
woods, where he continued roaming and raving till 
the morning. Then he again made his appearance, 
but in a very sorry plight. He was severely injured ; 
his flesh cut and torn, and his head bruised and 
bleeding. All this he charged upon the moon. His 
friends, from whom he had broken loose, eventually 
came after him, and took him away. I saw him 
sometime afterwards, and he had then recovered his 
senses. He had been told of his nocturnal visit to 
the white man, and of his strange behaviour upon the 
occasion. He seemed to regard the affair as a good 
joke, and he greeted me with the cordiality of old 
acquaintanceship. 
The quiet tenor of our life at Ribe was once inter- 
rupted as follows. A dispute had arisen between 
two rival chiefs of Takaungu. One of them, called 
Mbaruku, removed his head-quarters to a place called 
Gasi, a little south of Mombasa. Some time after- 
wards he gathered his forces together, proceeded to 
Takaungu, and made a successful attack upon the 
town, thereby placing himself in antagonism with 
the Sultan of Zanzibar. On his way back to Gasi 
he had to pass near to our station at Ribe, when 
he took it into his head that he would like to see 
me. He very politely sent up messengers to say 
that he would do himself the pleasure of calling at 
the station, provided I had no objection to his doing 
