d 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 s