The Extent And Nature Of The Calamity May Be Imagined, When I State That Nearly ONE HUNDRED VILLAGES, According To Mussoudi's Report, Were Swept Away.

Mussoudi, the Diwan, says that the inhabitants had gone to rest as usual - as they had done ever since

He had settled in the valley, twenty-five years ago - when, in the middle of the night, they heard a roar like many thunders, which woke them up to the fact that death was at work in the shape of an enormous volume of water, that, like a wall, came down, tearing the tallest trees with it, carrying away scores of villages at one fell, sure swoop into utter destruction. The scene six days after the event - when the river has subsided into its normal breadth and depth during the monsoons - is simply awful. Wherever we look, we find something very suggestive of the devastation that has visited the country; fields of corn are covered with many feet of sand and debris; the sandy bed the river has deserted is about a mile wide; and there are but three villages standing of all that I noticed when en route to Unyanyembe. When I asked Mussoudi where the people had gone to, he replied, "God has taken most of them, but some have gone to Udoe." The surest blow ever struck at the tribe of the Wakami was indeed given by the hand of God; and, to use the words of the Diwan, "God's power is wonderful, and who can resist Him!"

I again resort to my Diary, and extract the following:

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