360 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
peared from the lake to be a very large village. But as 
we approached its shores under sail, we were struck with 
the silence which reigned around, and the sight of a 
large herd of buffalo grazing near the village still more 
astonished us. 
The guides declared that only five weeks before they 
had stopped in it and traded with Ponda, the chief, and 
they could give no reason why — as two boats under sail 
would most likely attract the attention of the natives — 
the people of Ponda did not appear on the shore. 
We resolved to venture in to discover the cause. There 
was a deathly silence around. Numbers of earthenware 
pots, whole, and apparently but little used* were strewn 
about the beach and among the reeds flanking the path 
which led to the village, besides stools, staffs, hand- 
brooms, gourds, &c., &c. This was ominous. There was 
probably a trap or a snare of some kind laid for us. We 
retreated therefore hastily to the boat and canoe, and 
thirty men were armed. Thus, better prepared against 
the wiles of savage men, we advanced again cautiously 
towards the village. 
As we were surmounting the high ground on which 
the village was built, we saw a sight which froze the 
blood — the body of a poor old man, in a decomposed 
state, with a broad spear- wound in the back, and near it 
much dried blood. He had probably been dead five or 
six days. 
A few yards farther, we saw the decapitated corpse of 
another man, and ten feet from it, in a furrow or water 
channel, the bodies of three men and a woman, one of 
them dislimbed. 
We arrived before the village. The defences were 
broken down and burnt. About fifty huts still stood un- 
harmed by fire, but all the others were consumed. A 
few scorched banana stalks stood as a witness of the fury 
of the conflagration. But despite the black ruin and the 
charred embers which so plentifully strewed the ground, 
evidences were clear that flight had been hasty and com- 
pulsory, for all the articles that constitute the furniture 
of African families lay scattered in such numbers around 
