252 
THE KILIMA NJARO EXPEDITION 
so taciturn, but addressed a few friendly words in 
M-caga to the foremost men. A shout of surprise 
went up, “ Amanya mateta haru ! ” (He knows our 
language!) they cried, and we were friends at once. 
I could not help feeling how satisfactory this was. 
Here there were perhaps 400 savages assembled, all 
of them armed—in short, most of the fighting-men of 
the country were present, and about 200 of them 
provided—strange incongruity !—with Government 
Sniders. These had recently been obtained from a 
Swahili trader who had bought rifles from Thomson’s 
men and other discharged expeditions on the coast, 
and had exchanged them in Maranu for ivory. Bravely 
as my forty followers might have fought, we should 
inevitably have been massacred to a man in these 
rocky defiles had the natives chosen to revenge on us 
their old quarrels with Mandara, in which, until re¬ 
cently, I had been thought to bear an active part. 
Fortunately they had no such evil intentions, and I 
felt such confidence in the naive wouder and awe with 
which I was regarded that I walked about unarmed, 
and allowed my men to disperse in all directions. I 
inquired for the Sultan, but I was told that he had 
gone on a visit to his uncle of Kiboso, and would not 
return until the next day. His brother, however, a 
proud-looking, handsome boy, with an ancient Egyp¬ 
tian cast of features and light complexion, was pointed 
out to me, and I asked him to show me a place 
wherein we might camp, as night was approaching. 
He set a soldier to lead the way, and we walked up¬ 
wards for about lialf an hour, finally settling on a 
village-green—a smooth expanse of turf, intersected 
by a stream of running water. Tbe Sultan’s mother, 
a woman of middle age, came to greet us, and brought 
