ever, let me begin by describing it to you.

"From the slopes of Kilimanjaro you can look westwards to Mweru, a still
active volcano little known and rarely visited, and from Mweru a chain
of heights runs west once more till they end abruptly almost in a
precipice that descends to the plain. At its foot rises a small river,
bubbling up from half a dozen springs in a slight depression, and
flowing swiftly off, very clear and cool, towards the great lake which
is visible on the horizon from the mountain behind. Just below the pool
of the source, on the right bank, shaded with trees, ringed with
giant aloes and set in fields of millet and maize, stands a somewhat
remarkable native town. There is stone in the hills, and the natives
have drawn and worked it for their huts--not a usual thing in tropical
Africa. They may, of course, have learned the lore themselves, or some
wandering Arab traders may have taught them; but I have another idea,
as you shall hear. Be that as it may, there the neat houses stand--grey
walls, brown thatch, small swept yards of trodden earth before them
within the rings of neat reed fencing. Great willows grow along the bank
and trail their hanging tendrils in the water, and the brown kiddies
swing from them and go splashing into the stream with shouts of delight.
The place is remote, and in a corner out of the path of marauding
tribes. Not too easy to find, its folk are peaceable, and I can see
it again as I saw it on my first visit when, from the height of the
precipice behind, I could make out the thin spires of smoke rising on
the evening air and just perceive the brown herds of cattle drifting
slowly homewards to the protecting kraals.

"The tribe is a branch of the Bonde, iron workers and a settled folk.
How they came to be there, so far north and west of the main stock of
their people, I do not know, but of course one comes across that kind
of thing fairly commonly and the explanation is nearly always the same.
Fear of some kind drove out a family who wandered, like Abram from
Charron, until they found a promised land. These folk knew that they
came from the south and east a long long time ago; more they neither
knew nor cared to know. They were not many in number, and although
Arab _safaris_ had passed by, they were not enough to tempt a permanent
trader to cross the barren lands north and south, or dare the mountain
way from Mweru. The chief's oldest councillor spoke to me of a
slave-raid t