To Compensate For
Damage Done To Himself, As His Daughter By This Means Had Become
Reduced To Half Her Market-Value, Lumeresi Seized All The Cattle
This Man Had Brought With Him.
3d to 10th.
- When two days had elapsed, one of the three missing
Wahuma women was discovered in a village close by. As she said
she had absconded because her husband had ill-treated her, she
was flogged, to teach her better conduct. It was reported they
had been seen in M'yonga's establishment; and I was at the same
time informed that the husbands who were out in search of them
would return, as M'yonga was likely to demand a price for them if
they were claimed, in virtue of their being his rightful property
under the acknowledged law of buni, or findings-keepings.
For the next four days nothing but wars and rumours of wars could
be heard. The Watuta were out in all directions plundering
cattle and burning villages, and the Wahuma of this place had
taken such fright, they made a stealthy march with all their
herds to a neighbouring chief, to whom it happened that one of
Lumeresi's grey-beards was on a visit. They thus caught a
Tartar; for the grey-beard no sooner saw them than he went and
flogged them all back again, rebuking them on the way for their
ingratitude to their chief, who had taken them in when they
sought his shelter, and was now deserted by them on the first
alarm of war.
10th. - Wishing now to gain further intelligence of Grant, I
ordered some of my men to carry a letter to him; but they all
feared the Watuta meeting them on the way, and would not. Just
then a report came in that one of Lumeresi's sons, who had gone
near the capital of Ukhanga to purchase cows, was seized by
Rohinda in consequence of the Isamiro chief telling him that
Lumeresi had taken untold wealth from me, and he was to be
detained there a prisoner until Lumeresi either disgorged, or
sent me on to be fleeced again. Lumeresi, of course, was greatly
perplexed at this, and sought my advice, but could get nothing
out of me, for I laughed in my sleeve, and told him such was the
consequence of his having been too greedy.
11th to 15th. - Masudi with his caravan arrived from Mchimeka -
Ungurue "the Pig," who had led me astray, was, by the way, his
kirangozi or caravan-leader. Masudi told us he had suffered most
severely from losses by his men running away, one after the
other, as soon as they received their pay. He thought Grant
would soon join me, as, the harvest being all in, the men about
Rungua would naturally be anxious for service. He had had
fearful work with M'yonga, having paid him a gun, some gunpowder,
and a great quantity of cloth; and he had to give the same to
Ruhe, with the addition of twenty brass wires, one load of
mzizima, and one load of red coral beads.
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