A Walk Of Three Hours Over This Hot Plain Brought Us To The Cultivated Fields Of Manyara.

Arriving before the village-gate, we were forbidden to enter, as the country was throughout in a state of war, and it behoved them to be very careful of admitting any party, lest the villagers might be compromised.

We were, however, directed to a khambi to the right of the village, near some pools of clear water, where we discovered some half dozen ruined huts, which looked very uncomfortable to tired people.

After we had built our camp, the kirangozi was furnished with some cloths to purchase food from the village for the transit of a wilderness in front of us, which was said to extend nine marches, or 135 miles. He was informed that the Mtemi had strictly prohibited his people from selling any grain whatever.

This evidently was a case wherein the exercise of a little diplomacy could only be effective; because it would detain us several days here, if we were compelled to send men back to Kikuru for provisions. Opening a bale of choice goods, I selected two royal cloths, and told Bombay to carry them to him, with the compliments and friendship of the white man. The Sultan sulkily refused them, and bade him return to the white man and tell him not to bother him. Entreaties were of no avail, he would not relent; and the men, in exceedingly bad temper, and hungry, were obliged to go to bed supperless. The words of Njara, a slave- trader, and parasite of the great Sheikh bin Nasib, recurred to me. "Ah, master, master, you will find the people will be too much for you, and that you will have to return. The Wa-manyara are bad, the Wakonongo are very bad, the Wazavira are the worst of all. You have come to this country at a bad time. It is war everywhere." And, indeed, judging from the tenor of the conversations around our camp-fires, it seemed but too evident. There was every prospect of a general decamp of all my people. However, I told them not to be discouraged; that I would get food for them in the morning.

The bale of choice cloths was opened again next morning, and four royal cloths were this time selected, and two dotis of Merikani, and Bombay was again despatched, burdened with compliments, and polite words.

It was necessary to be very politic with a man who was so surly, and too powerful to make an enemy of. What if he made up his mind to imitate the redoubtable Mirambo, King of Uyoweh! The effect of my munificent liberality was soon seen in the abundance of provender which came to my camp. Before an hour went by, there came boxes full of choroko, beans, rice, matama or dourra, and Indian corn, carried on the heads of a dozen villagers, and shortly after the Mtemi himself came, followed by about thirty musketeers and twenty spearmen, to visit the first white man ever seen on this road.

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