I asked the question of Dugumbe and others, “Now for what is all this murder?” All blamed Manilla as its cause, and in one sense he was the cause; but it is hardly credible that they repeat it is in order to be avenged on Manilla for making friends with headmen, he being a slave.  I cannot believe it fully.  The wish to make an impression in the country as to the importance and greatness of the new comers was the most potent motive; but it was terrible that the murdering of so many should be contemplated at all.  It made me sick at heart.  Who could accompany the people of Dugumbe and Tagamoio to Lomame and be free from blood-guiltiness?

I proposed to Dugumbe to catch the murderers, and hang them up in the marketplace, as our protest against the bloody deeds before the Manyuema.  If, as he and others added, the massacre was committed by Manilla’s people, he would have consented; but it was done by Tagamoio’s people, and others of this party, headed by Dugumbe.  This slaughter was peculiarly atrocious, inasmuch as we have always heard that women coming to or from market have never been known to be molested:  even when two districts are engaged in actual hostilities, “the women,” say they, “pass among us to market unmolested,” nor has one ever been known to be plundered by the men.  These Nigger Moslems are inferior to the Manyuema in justice and right.  The people under Hassani began the superwickedness of capture and pillage of all indiscriminately.  Dugumbe promised to send over men to order Tagamoio’s men to cease firing and burning villages; they remained over among the ruins, feasting on goats and fowls all night, and next day (16th) continued their infamous work till twenty-seven villages were destroyed.

16th July, 1871.—­I restored upwards of thirty of the rescued to their friends:  Dugumbe seemed to act in good faith, and kept none of them; it was his own free will that guided him.  Women are delivered to their husbands, and about thirty-three canoes left in the creek are to be kept for the owners too.

12 A.M.—­Shooting still going on on the other side, and many captives caught.  At 1 P.M.  Tagamoio’s people began to cross over in canoes, beating their drums, firing their guns, and shouting, as if to say, “See the conquering heroes come;” they are answered by the women of Dugumba’s camp lullilooing, and friends then fire off their guns in joy.  I count seventeen villages in flames, and the smoke goes straight up and forms clouds at the top of the pillar, showing great heat evolved, for the houses are full of carefully-prepared firewood.  Dugumbe denies having sent Tagamoio on this foray, and Tagamoio repeats that he went to punish the friends made by Manilla, who, being a slave, had no right to make war and burn villages, that could only be done by free men.  Manilla confesses to me privately that he did wrong in that, and loses all his beads and many friends in consequence.