The body out for burial, that Jako, not
being able to carry it, had dragged the body to the jungle,
and there left it naked without the slightest covering of
earth, or anything else.
"There is one of us gone, Shaw, my boy! Who will be the next?"
I remarked that night to my companion.
August 14th. - Wrote some letters to Zanzibar. Shaw was taken very
ill last night.
August 19th. Saturday. - My soldiers are employed stringing beads.
Shaw is still a-bed. We hear that Mirambo is coming to Unyanyembe.
A detachment of Arabs and their slaves have started this morning to
possess themselves of the powder left there by the redoubtable
Sheikh Sayd bin Salim, the commander-in-chief of the Arab
settlements.
August 21st. Monday. - Shaw still sick. One hundred fundo of beads
have been strung. The Arabs are preparing for another sally
against Mirambo. The advance of Mirambo upon Unyanyembe was denied
by Sayd bin Salim, this morning.
August 22nd. - We were stringing beads this morning, when, about 10
A.M., we heard a continued firing from the direction of Tabora.
Rushing out from our work to the front door facing Tabora, we heard
considerable volleying, and scattered firing, plainly; and
ascending to the top of my tembe, I saw with my glasses the
smoke of the guns. Some of my men who were sent on to ascertain
the cause came running back with the information that Mirambo had
attacked Tabora with over two thousand men, and that a force of
over one thousand Watuta, who had allied themselves with him for
the sake of plunder, had come suddenly upon Tabora, attacking from
opposite directions.
Later in the day, or about noon, watching the low saddle over
which we could see Tabora, we saw it crowded with fugitives
from that settlement, who were rushing to our settlement at
Kwihara for protection. From these people we heard the sad
information that the noble Khamis bin Abdullah, his little protege,
Khamis, Mohammed bin Abdullah, Ibrahim bin Rashid, and Sayf, the
son of Ali, the son of Sheikh, the son of Nasib, had been slain.
When I inquired into the details of the attack, and the manner of
the death of these Arabs, I was told that after the first firing
which warned the inhabitants of Tabora that the enemy was upon
them, Khamis bin Abdullah and some of the principal Arabs who
happened to be with him had ascended to the roof of his tembe,
and with his spyglass he had looked towards the direction of the
firing. To his great astonishment he saw the plain around Tabora
filled with approaching savages, and about two miles off, near
Kazima, a tent pitched, which he knew to belong to Mirambo, from
its having been presented to that chief by the Arabs of Tabora
when they were on good terms with him.
