Would Not The Stoutest English Villager,
Armed Only With The Bow And Arrow Against The Enemy's Musket, Quail
At The Idea Of Breaking Through That Wall Of Fire?
When at a
distance, we once saw a scene like this, and had the charred grass,
literally as thick as flakes of black snow, falling around us, there
was no difficulty in understanding the secret of the slave-trader's
power.
On the 21st of September, we arrived at the village of the chief
Muasi, or Muazi; it is surrounded by a stockade, and embowered in
very tall euphorbia-trees; their height, thirty or forty feet, shows
that it has been inhabited for at least one generation. A visitation
of disease or death causes the headmen to change the site of their
villages, and plant new hedges; but, though Muazi has suffered from
the attacks of the Mazitu, he has evidently clung to his birthplace.
The village is situated about two miles south-west of a high hill
called Kasungu, which gives the name to a district extending to the
Loangwa of the Maravi. Several other detached granite hills have
been shot up on the plain, and many stockaded villages, all owing
allegiance to Muazi, are scattered over it.
On our arrival, the chief was sitting in the smooth shady place,
called Boalo, where all public business is transacted, with about two
hundred men and boys around him. We paid our guides with due
ostentation. Masiko, the tallest of our party, measured off the
fathom of cloth agreed upon, and made it appear as long as possible,
by facing round to the crowd, and cutting a few inches beyond what
his outstretched arms could reach, to show that there was no
deception.
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