Chibisa being well known as a great conjurer and general.The Ajawa ran off yelling and screaming, "Nkondo! Nkondo!" (War! War!)We heard the words of the Manganja, but they did not strike us at the moment as neutralizing all our assertions of peace.The captives threw down their loads on the path, and fled to the hills:and a large body of armed men came running up from the village, and in a few seconds they were all around us, though mostly concealed by the projecting rocks and long grass.In vain we protested that we had not come to fight, but to talk with them.They would not listen, having, as we remembered afterwards, good reason, in the cry of "Our Chibisa."Flushed with recent victory over three villages, and confident of an easy triumph over a mere handful of men, they began to shoot their poisoned arrows, sending them with great force upwards of a hundred yards, and wounding one of our followers through the arm.Our retiring slowly up the ascent from the village only made them more eager to prevent our escape; and, in the belief that this retreat was evidence of fear, they closed upon us in bloodthirsty fury.Some came within fifty yards, dancing hideously; others having quite surrounded us, and availing themselves of the rocks and long grass hard by, were intent on cutting us off, while others made off with their women and a large body of slaves.Four were armed with muskets, and we were obliged in self-defence to return their fire and drive them off.When they saw the range of rifles, they very soon desisted, and ran away; but some shouted to us from the hills the consoling intimation, that they would follow, and kill us where we slept.Only two of the captives escaped to us, but probably most of those made prisoners that day fled elsewhere in the confusion.We returned to the village which we had left in the morning, after a hungry, fatiguing, and most unpleasant day.
Though we could not blame ourselves for the course we had followed, we felt sorry for what had happened.It was the first time we had ever been attacked by the natives or come into collision with them;
Though we had always taken it for granted that we might be called upon to act in self-defence, we were on this occasion less prepared than usual, no game having been expected here.The men had only a single round of cartridge each; their leader had no revolver, and the rifle he usually fired with was left at the ship to save it from the damp of the season.Had we known better the effect of slavery and murder on the temper of these bloodthirsty marauders, we should have tried messages and presents before going near them.
The old chief, Chinsunse, came on a visit to us next day, and pressed the Bishop to come and live with him."Chigunda," he said, "is but a child, and the Bishop ought to live with the father rather than with the child."But the old man's object was so evidently to have the Mission as a shield against the Ajawa, that his invitation was declined.While begging us to drive away the marauders, that he might live in peace, he adopted the stratagem of causing a number of his men to rush into the village, in breathless haste, with the news that the Ajawa were close upon us.And having been reminded that we never fought, unless attacked, as we were the day before, and that we had come among them for the purpose of promoting peace, and of teaching them to worship the Supreme, to give up selling His children, and to cultivate other objects for barter than each other, he replied, in a huff, "Then I am dead already."
The Bishop, feeling, as most Englishmen would, at the prospect of the people now in his charge being swept off into slavery by hordes of men-stealers, proposed to go at once to the rescue of the captive Manganja, and drive the marauding Ajawa out of the country.All were warmly in favour of this, save Dr. Livingstone, who opposed it on the ground that it would be better for the Bishop to wait, and see the effect of the check the slave-hunters had just experienced.The Ajawa were evidently goaded on by Portuguese agents from Tette, and there was no bond of union among the Manganja on which to work.It was possible that the Ajawa might be persuaded to something better, though, from having long been in the habit of slaving for the Quillimane market, it was not very probable.But the Manganja could easily be overcome piecemeal by any enemy; old feuds made them glad to see calamities befall their next neighbours.We counselled them to unite against the common enemies of their country, and added distinctly that we English would on no account enter into their quarrels.On the Bishop inquiring whether, in the event of the Manganja again asking aid against the Ajawa, it would be his duty to accede to their request,--"No," replied Dr. Livingstone, "you will be oppressed by their importunities, but do not interfere in native quarrels."This advice the good man honourably mentions in his journal.We have been rather minute in relating what occurred during the few days of our connection with the Mission of the English Universities, on the hills, because, the recorded advice having been discarded, blame was thrown on Dr. Livingstone's shoulders, as if the missionaries had no individual responsibility for their subsequent conduct.This, unquestionably, good Bishop Mackenzie had too much manliness to have allowed.The connection of the members of the Zambesi Expedition, with the acts of the Bishop's Mission, now ceased, for we returned to the ship and prepared for our journey to Lake Nyassa.We cheerfully, if necessary, will bear all responsibility up to this point; and if the Bishop afterwards made mistakes in certain collisions with the slavers, he had the votes of all his party with him, and those who best knew the peculiar circumstances, and the loving disposition of this good-hearted man, will blame him least.In this position, and in these circumstances, we left our friends at the Mission Station.
