“ TROUBLOUS TIMES.” 
165 
neighbours, and his little kingdom in a continued 
state of blockade, liis protection, as far as it influenced 
a peaceful residence on the upper slopes of the moun¬ 
tain, was worse than useless. Unfortunately, too, 
Mandara had made immediate use of the two or three 
barrels of gunpowder I had innocently given him, and 
had further availed himself of the moral support which 
my presence at his court afforded to wage a rash and 
unprovoked war on his neighbours, and to rob them 
in various well-planned raids of their wives and cattle, 
adding the latter to his herds and the former to his 
harem, and checking their enraged pursuits with the 
lofty threats that, if they dared to infringe the terri¬ 
tory of Mosi, “ his ” white man would pickle them 
alive. Consequently, while I was so tranquilly and 
innocently pursuing my quiet avocations, skinning 
birds, drying plants, building houses, and cutting 
roads amid the ferny glades around my growing 
settlement, far from the turmoil of war, and uncon¬ 
scious of the perpetration of ill deeds, the unhappy 
people of Kirua, Kiboso, and Maranu were connecting 
the loss of their womankind and cows with my advent 
in Caga, and naturally vowing me a life-long hatred. 
In the meantime my porters were returning from Taita 
with the rest of my goods, and in due time approached 
the base of the mountain. As they journeyed tran¬ 
quilly one afternoon towards the frontier of Mosi, and 
were congratulating themselves that a short march the 
next day would bring them to my settlement, their 
leader descried in the distance a body of men moving 
cautiously amongst the brushwood. Fearing lest they 
were Masai, he immediately made a forward rush for a 
camping-place close at hand—in fact, the very same 
site, a little peninsula nearly surrounded by a rivulet, 
