The ringleading deserters sent Chuma to say that they were going with the people of Mohamad (who left to-day), to the Metamba, but I said that I had nought to say to them.

They would go now to the Metamba, whom, on deserting, they said they so much feared, and they think nothing of having left me to go with only three attendants, and get my feet torn to pieces in mud and sand.

They probably meant to go back to the women at Mamohela, who fed them in the absence of their husbands.

They were told by Mohamad that they must not follow his people, and he gave orders to bind them, and send them back if they did.

They think that no punishment will reach them whatever they do: they are freemen, and need not work or do anything but beg.
"English," they call themselves, and the Arabs fear them, though the eagerness with which they engaged in slave-hunting showed them to be genuine niggers.
_20th October, 1870._--The first heavy rain of this season fell yesterday afternoon.