According to our informants, it was even rumoured that they proposed shortly to attack these Mazitus in force, relying on their guns to give them the victory and open to them a new and almost inexhaustible store of splendid human merchandise.

Meanwhile they were cleaning out certain small tribes which hitherto had escaped them, owing to the fact that they had their residence in bush or among difficult hills.
The track we followed was the recognised slave road.

Of this we soon became aware by the numbers of skeletons which we found lying in the tall grass at its side, some of them with heavy slave-sticks still upon their wrists.

These, I suppose, had died from exhaustion, but others, as their split skulls showed had been disposed of by their captors.
On the eighth day of our march we struck the track of a slave caravan.
It had been travelling towards the coast, but for some reason or other had turned back.

This may have been because its leaders had been warned of the approach of our party.