he even sent again for more
coffee after I had seen reason to resent his sending back my present. I
replied, "He won't send coffee back, for I shall give him none." In
revenge he sends round to warn all the Ujijians against taking my
letters to the coast; this is in accordance with their previous conduct,
for, like the Kilwa people on the road to Nyassa, they have refused to
carry my correspondence.

This is a den of the worst kind of slave-traders; those whom I met in
Urungu and Itawa were gentlemen slavers: the Ujiji slavers, like the
Kilwa and Portuguese, are the vilest of the vile. It is not a trade, but
a system of consecutive murders; they go to plunder and kidnap, and
every trading trip is nothing but a foray. Moene Mokaia, the headman of
this place, sent canoes through to Nzige, and his people, feeling their
prowess among men ignorant of guns, made a regular assault but were
repulsed, and the whole, twenty in number, were killed. Moene Mokaia is
now negotiating with Syde bin Habib to go and revenge this, for so much
ivory, and all he can get besides. Syde, by trying to revenge the death
of Salem bin Habib, his brother, on the Bakatala, has blocked up one
part of the country against me, and will probably block Nzige, for I
cannot get a message sent to Chowambe by anyone, and may have to go to
Karagwe on foot, and then from Rumanyika down to this water.

[In reference to the above we may add that there is a vocabulary of
Masai words at the end of a memorandum-book. Livingstone compiled this
with the idea that it would prove useful on his way towards the coast,
should he eventually pass through the Masai country. No doubt some of
the Arabs or their slaves knew the language, and assisted him at his
work.]

_29th May, 1869._--Many people went off to Unyembe, and their houses
were untenanted; I wished one, as I was in a lean-to of Zahor's, but the
two headmen tried to secure the rent for themselves, and were defeated
by Mohamad bin Saleh. I took my packet of letters to Thani, and gave two
cloths and four bunches of beads to the man who was to take them to
Unyanyembe; an hour afterwards, letters, cloths, and beads were
returned: Thani said he was afraid of English letters; he did not know
what was inside. I had sewed them up in a piece of canvas, that was
suspicious, and he would call all the great men of Ujiji and ask them if
it would be safe to take them; if they assented he would call for the
letters, if not he