UJIJI AND TANGANIKA. 
357 
Ruga ! As undesirable as wolves in a stern Siberian 
winter to an unarmed party in a solitary sledge are the 
Ruga-Ruga to peaceful travellers in an African forest 
or wilderness. Whatever the accident that brought 
them, their very presence suggested the possibility and 
probability of a bloody struggle. They are bandits, 
wretches devoted to plunder and murder, men whose 
hands are at all times ready to be imbrued in blood. 
They are representatives of that tribe which has 
KUNGWE PEAKS. 
desolated and depopulated beautiful Kawendi from the 
Malagarazi river down to the Rungwa. All alike — 
whether Arabs, Wajiji, Wangwana, Wanyamwezi, or 
the aborigines of the land — owe them an unpaid debt 
of vengeance for the blood they have shed. It was not 
our special task, however, to undertake the repayment ; 
therefore neither by word nor look did we betray any 
antipathy. 
We gave them gifts of meat at their own request. 
The tobacco gourd passed round in their polluted, 
