fettered his inimical action, and the alliance between Msamara and rafi produced nothing further than the capture of sixty of ponda's people as above described.

These hostages of Msamara's being important people in his untry, public opinion compelled him to make some effort to lease them. Accordingly, finding letters were of no avail, he ossed the river and came up to the vicinity of Fort Johnston ith an armed following to protest his friendship, but to ask that ne people retained as hostages might be given up. I declined to urrender them, however, until he restored the twenty people stolen rom Mponda. Whilst we were talking I noticed, to my great urprise, in Msamara's train two of the slave-traders (Musa Salimini nd Majileiva, locally known as "Kamwendo ") whom Captain Maguire had captured in last October at Maüni, and who were sentenced to a term of imprisonment at Fort Johnston, but who afterwards eluded the Indian sentries and escaped. I pointed this out to Msamara and demanded their surrender. He demurred, and whilst I was sending for some police to arrest them, they made off to the river-side, got into canoes and escaped. I therefore told Msamara that I should arrest him and confine him in the fort until the slave-traders were recaptured,* and the twenty people stolen from Mponda returned.

With some adroitness Msamara's people had been disarmed by Kiongwe and the Swahili police, and Msamara, seeing resistance useless, accompanied me to the fort, where he was given comfortable quarters and allowed to have his own attendants.

Meantime, I had been considering what action should be taken against our enemies. The Indian soldiers were very anxious to be led against Makanjira, but to march them 90 miles overland without porters or other means of conveyance to carry the field-gun, tents, ammunition, and food was impossible, especially in a country without roads, and at this season marshy and covered with a dense jungle of grass. I had no means of conveyance by water, and, apart from these considerations, in order to lead a sufficient force against Makanjira I should have to denude Fort Johnston of nearly all its garrison; then, when our backs were turned, Zarafi and his allies would make a descent on the place and probably take it. I therefore thought it wiser first to deal with the enemies nearer at hand than Makanjira. I started with Messrs. King, Stevenson, Dr. Watson, and Corporal Hoare, R. E., for Zarafi's country, taking with me about thirty Sepoys and the same number of Zanzibaris. Mponda sent a number of his men to carry our loads, but they were

They were ultimately caught by Mponda's people a fortnight afterwards and surrendered to me, and are now working out their sentence.

uncertain allies, as they declined to penetrate far into Zarafi's country, and were constantly deserting. I occupied, without resist ance, two of Zarafi's villages. At one of them, Mwinyi-Mtshande's, I built a fort in a very advantageous position on the lower slopes of the hill country, commanding the beautiful and fertile valley of the river which debouches into the lake at Makandanji's. This fort should control the road-a constant slave-caravan route-which passes from Makanjira's, viâ Makandanji's, through Zarafi's country to Kawinga's. From this fort we made several excursions, but nowhere would Zarafi meet us or show fight. He had, in fact, left his country and fled to the hills beyond, where it was futile to attempt to follow him without guides or porters.

Whilst at Mwinyi-Mtshande's I sent an expedition of Zanzibari police and Mponda's people, together with a few Angoni, to reconnoitre Likoro's and Mkata's country along the east shore of Lake Pamalombwe. These men are vassals of Zarafi's, but they had been somewhat bolder in the war than he. Of late they had taken to firing on our boats and those of the Universities Mission as they went by.

The Zanzibaris drove Likoro's people out of their town with considerable loss to the enemy, and with one Angoni killed on our side, and one Zanzibari wounded. They penetrated into Mkata's country, but were eventually repulsed by large numbers of the enemy, though their retreat was effected without loss and in good order. Consequently, I saw that the bulk of the resistance was to be met with in that direction, and after completing the fort at Mwinyi-Mtshande's and leaving it sufficiently garrisoned, and with Corporal Hoare in charge, I proceeded against Likoro. By this time we had been joined by Captain Keane, R.N., of Her Majesty's ship Herald, and Quartermaster Inge, who had volunteered for service on the Upper Shiré, and had come up in a boat from Matope bringing very welcome supplies of food. Captain Keane took command of the land party, and I proceeded with the Indian police by water. We arrived almost simultaneously at Likoro's, which we occupied without resistance, the natives running away at our approach. The next morning, however, an advance party under Messrs. King and Stevenson, who were cutting a road through the grass, was smartly attacked, and one Zanzibari wounded. Te enemy was driven from his cover, and we gradually pushed on to Mkata's country, the journey thither being beset with many difficulties owing to the extraordinary height and density of the herbage. In many places the grass rose above our heads, and we floundered in swamps or laboured through deep mud.

We took and destroyed five villages in all, and at only one place —a stockaded town belonging to Nasora-a Swahili man residing

th Mkata, did we meet with much resistance. Here one of our tive police-a Mambwe man-was shot dead, through the body. From Nasoro's we sent out skirmishing parties, but the enemy owing no sign of existence we eventually returned to Likoro's, here a force under Quartermaster Inge was left for a while to arass the enemy should they attempt to return.

We then made our way back to Fort Johnston, Mr. King and ayself going overland, and Captain Keane taking command of the

oat party.

As regards Msa mara, however, a disagreeable thing had happened just before I started for Likoro's.

After his detention in the fort he had informed Kiongwe that it was useless putting guards over him, as he could at any time escape if he chose, owing to a powerful medicine he possessed which would render him invisible. This medicine, it appears, was a blackish powder contained in an antelope's horn which he wore around his waist. The contents, he told the Sepoy, were snuff, so no suspicion was attached to this horn; however, this was the medicine which was to render him invisible. He was to divest himself of all his clothes, swallow a pinch of this "snuff," and he would be able to walk about unseen. Accordingly, one day, the Indian guards were considerably surprised at seeing Msamara, quite naked, attempting to push past him. A prompt presentation of bayonets made him recoil, and he was induced to return to his house in the fort and resume his clothes. After this the horn of medicine was taken away from him and hung up in Kiongwe's house. A few days afterwards, however, it was taken down by Msamara's own attendants and smuggled back to him. Kiongwe again tried to take it away, but Msamara became so excited that I said he might wear it, as I imagined its potency to be purely imaginary, and thought that the first failure to escape would have shown Msamara the trumpery nature of the medicineman's charm.

However, it appeared that he himself ascribed his non-success in rendering himself invisible to the insufficiency of the dose. One night, therefore, he must have taken, unobserved, a larger quantity, which had a fatal effect on him, for in the morning (at 6 A.M.) the guards found him dead and divested of his clothing. Dr. Watson was at once called, and Msamara's people were summoned. The doctor pronounced life to have been extinct for several hours, and the cause of death to be some poison affecting the action of the heart. On Msamara's right hand was found a sprinkling of the black powder from the horn. He had also gripped the right shoulder with the nails of his left hand as though contorted by some spasm. The doctor wished to make a post-mortem examination, but Msamara's people strongly objected. They themselves

expressed their conviction that their Chief had met his death by an overdose of the "strong medicine," and they asked leave to carry the body back at once to his own country, so that his people might see that Msamara had not met his death by violence. I acceded to their request, and they started in canoes and returned with their Chief's dead body to Msamara's town.

The two slave-traders who had daringly accompanied Msamara to the vicinity of Fort Johnston, and who had subsequently escaped, attempted to return to Msamara's town, but the people drove them away, saying that they had already brought enough trouble on the country. They were then captured by Mponda and handed over to Some idea of their cool confidence and daring may be gathered from the following recital of their proceedings since they escaped from Fort Johuston in October last :

me.

They first went to Saïdi Mwazungu's. Then when we attacked that place they fled to Zarafi's, and from there went to Msamara's. From Msamara's they visited Livingstonia, and captured the wife of one of the African Lakes Company's boatmen. This woman they brought back to Msamara's, and sold there to a Swahili man who lives in Kawinga's country. After this they assisted Msamara in his raid on Mponda's villages, and sold for him, or on their own account, the twenty captives thus obtained. The woman from Livingstonia, however, eventually escaped from Kawinga's country and made her way down to the Shiré. People came in pursuit of her, so she hid herself in the reeds. At that moment Captain Keane was coming past in the Lakes Company's boat on his journey up river. She cried out to him for assistance, and he took her into the boat. Then the people in pursuit came up and demanded her restoration, declaring that she was not a slave but a runaway wife. This, however, was abundantly disproved by her being recognized and identified by the Livingstonia boat boys. Finding their plea had broken down, therefore, the claimants hurriedly decamped, and Captain Keane brought the woman to Fort Johnston. There she immediately identified Majiliwa, or " Kamwendo " ("Little Leg") as he is locally called, as her kidnapper at Livingstonia. Kamwendo did not deny the imputation. Other witnesses came forward from the Domira to identify the woman; among them her brother, who bad been wounded in the disaster at Makanjira's. I therefore sent her back to Livingstonia and restored her to her husband. Her name is Tshiwamsinjiri.

The two slave-traders are now on their way to the Lower Shire to work out their term of hard labour on the roads. What induced

* Dr. Watson is now analyzing this. It appears to be made from the 'strophanthus" seed.

em to do anything so foolhardy as to accompany Msamara to my mp I cannot say. Perhaps they may have thought that since the ath of Maguire and his interpreter no one would recognize them, pecially as they had put off their white shirts and merely wore in-cloths, or it may be that Msamara compelled them to come, erhaps half intending to offer them up in exchange for his hostages all of whom, by-the-bye, have now been sent back to their country). t any rate, we have recaptured two out of the seven slave-traders hom Maguire caught at Mauni. The others have, by all accounts, eturned to the coast at Kilwa Kivinje, where, it is to be hoped, the German authorities will look out for them. The names of the other ive are: Ali-bin-Tshamba, Bwana 'Omari, Amiri, Mwitshande, and Salimani.

With regard to the other Chiefs on the southern half of Lake Nyasa and in Angoniland, I may mention that they all appear to be friendly and loyal to the British. I received from Tshikusi, of Angoniland, a present of a bull and a cow and four tusks of ivory, and the loan of twenty-five men. Tshifisi, another Angoni Chief, sent one ox, twenty-five goats, and six small tusks. Jumbe, the Sultan of Marimba, sent a present of fifty 50-lb. bags of good rice, and assisted my messengers who went to his town to buy sixty-six more bags. Mpemba sent five loads of Indian corn and one tusk. Kazembe's mother sent a large tusk of ivory weighing 46 lb. The ivory in question has been sold and placed to the credit of the Administration.

Having satisfied myself that Fort Johnston was amply garrisoned and furnished with sufficient stores of ammunition to meet all present contingencies, and recognizing that further action against Makanjira was impossible until the dry season and the burning of the grass, I decided to return to Zomba, where it was urgently necessary to continue the settlement of the land claims and other matters of which my absence had delayed the solution. Captain Keane returned with me, leaving Quartermaster Inge at Fort Johnston, where his services in connection with the guns and boats will be most valuable.

The Marquess of Salisbury.

I have, &c.,

H. H. JOHNSTON.

Of which Mr. King is in charge. The garrison of the two forts consists of Dr. Watson, Corporal Hoare, Quartermaster Inge, Kiongwo, 50 Sepoys, 42 Zan. zibaris, and 49 Makua.