About Two O'clock We Saw The Smoke Of
Burning Villages, And Heard Triumphant Shouts, Mingled With The Wail
Of The Manganja Women, Lamenting Over Their Slain.
The Bishop then
engaged us in fervent prayer; and, on rising from our knees, we saw a
long line of Ajawa warriors, with their captives, coming round the
hill-side.
The first of the returning conquerors were entering their
own village below, and we heard women welcoming them back with
"lillilooings." The Ajawa headman left the path on seeing us, and
stood on an anthill to obtain a complete view of our party. We
called out that we had come to have an interview with them, but some
of the Manganja who followed us shouted "Our Chibisa is come:"
Chibisa being well known as a great conjurer and general. The Ajawa
ran off yelling and screaming, "Nkondo! Nkondo!" (War! War!) We
heard the words of the Manganja, but they did not strike us at the
moment as neutralizing all our assertions of peace. The captives
threw down their loads on the path, and fled to the hills: and a
large body of armed men came running up from the village, and in a
few seconds they were all around us, though mostly concealed by the
projecting rocks and long grass. In vain we protested that we had
not come to fight, but to talk with them. They would not listen,
having, as we remembered afterwards, good reason, in the cry of "Our
Chibisa." Flushed with recent victory over three villages, and
confident of an easy triumph over a mere handful of men, they began
to shoot their poisoned arrows, sending them with great force upwards
of a hundred yards, and wounding one of our followers through the
arm.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 304 of 505
Words from 82041 to 82334
of 136856
