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THE MITIMONI RAIDERS.

BY FUNDI.

ON the Portuguese side of the Rovuma River, some eighty miles east of Lake Nyasa, stands or rather stood-the village of Mitimoni.

In its day it had been quite an important village. For merly it was the seat of the local government, for the Portuguese commandant had his house there, from which he dispensed justice to the surrounding district. In our day, however, Mitimoni had fallen from this high estate, and when we first knew it, was nothing more than a rather large Yao village, presided over by a native police "capitao" and two constables.

These three gentlemen ruled with a rod of iron. They took the first-fruits of all harvests, especially of the rice crop. They commandeered the pick of the young girls. They levied toll on the river ford in the dry weather, and extracted an exorbitant fee for the canoe passage in the wet season. They inaugurated a system of free labour for themselves and their households, and collected

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private tax, in addition to the regular Government poll tax, from every one in the district. Furthermore, they systematically robbed the stranger within the gate, and charged lodgings at a very high figure to every traveller passing through the

village. In fact, if ever the old adage "Put a beggar on horseback was exemplified anywhere in this world, it was in the conduct of those three native police officials at the village of Mitimoni.

The groans of the oppressed population ascended unto heaven, but-and this was more important-they did not penetrate through the two hundred miles of jungle that separated Mitimoni from the nearest Portuguese administrator. The

police watched that.

Many times my gorge has risen at the tales that drifted through the bush to our camp, but, of course, we could do nothing. We had not the ear of the Portuguese governor any more than the native had. We could neither of us speak Portuguese-and the governor could speak no language but Portuguese-so that we had to converse with him through his native interpreter, we speaking Yao and the native translating us into Portuguese. Naturally, the interpreter (who, of course, drew large sums of backsheesh from the police) told the governor anything but what we were complaining of. Then, turning to us, he would naïvely promise that "the matter would be looked into !" This was as far as we ever got, but we bided our time.

Our chance came when these three policemen stopped one of our boys, and through some misunderstanding as to where he came from, severely thrashed him prior to robbing him of his little store of money, and of our letters which he was bringing to the camp. Now although we could not interfere between the villagers and the police, we most certainly could between our own boys and the police, and as soon as ever I could get away, I set off with a small following-including the maltreated boy-for the village of Mitimoni. It lay rather over one hundred miles west of our camp, but the going was fairly easy, and the journey was accomplished in five days.

The police capitao was most obliging, and offered me the choice of half the houses in the village to sleep in. As a matter of fact, I elected to sleep in my own tents, and there, early next morning, I held my court. Having heard the evidence for and against my boy, I found a verdict against the police, and amid the terrified silence of the villagers, administered the thrashing of his life to Police Capitao Gombameti. I also gave a smaller dose to the two constables by way of thoroughly impressing upon them that the person of the white man and all his household were sacrosanct to police oppression.

To appreciate what followed it is necessary to go back a little to the previous year, when we had been doing a lot of

hippo shooting. With an eye to our future comfort we had made it a rule that wherever we stopped for a night, the Angoni people must build us a house. In later days these houses were remarkably useful as dâk-bungalows, for use when we were out after elephant.

Now during the dry season, whole villages would flock to the Rovuma to catch fish. Often they stayed for a month or more, and in time we began to realise that these hordes of natives were using our houses as a sort of home from home. In this way the places were becoming rapidly uninhabitable from a European point of view so we took steps to rectify matters. Boys were sent out from our camp with instructions to throw out any natives who might be found occupying the Bwanas' houses, and afterwards to rebuild the houses and leave everything habitable.

This was done, and a good many sore heads were contracted in the doing of it. Imagine, then, my surprise when my partner shortly afterwards returned from a shoot and informed me that twenty-five natives had not only taken possession of two of our houses but were actually digging their gardens round them! This was the limit, and we were still debating the best way of once and for all putting a stop to this kind of thing, when word was brought in that a native had been caught by a lion.

Selimani, our capitao, in- strong line about the dogs," remarked R. "We might do worse than broadcast that yarn."

vestigated the business, and strangely enough it turned out to be one of the boys who had trespassed on our property.

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'No, Bwana," replied Selimani slowly, but I noticed that he looked very thoughtfully from one to the other of us. "What's he got into his head now?" asked R. as Selimani went out. We could always distinguish his " great idea" look by this time. However, we thought no more about it until later in the evening, when we happened to be returning through the compound from an inspection of our gardens. Selimani was sitting in the centre of a circle of natives who were listening open-mouthed to his monologue. We paused in the shelter of a hut and listened.

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and you see," we heard Selimani proclaiming in his sonorous accents, "the lions caught him because he was in the Bwana's house. These are true words, because the Bwana told me so himself. Lions are the same as dogs to the white man. This I know" and away he started on some long-winded story to illustrate his point.

The more we thought about it the better we liked the idea, and eventually we decided to carry it out. Up and down the countryside went the word that the Bwanas' "dogs (lions) had been warned to guard all their property, and to eat anybody whom they found living in the Bwanas' houses. The effect of this was highly satisfactory, and we had no further cause of complaint.

To return now to the Mitimoni affair.

Having executed justice on the police I arranged to leave the next day, but before going I called together the whole village, including the police, and delivered a short but powerful homily on the future penalties attached to the beating of any of the Bwanas' boys. I was rather good at this sort of thing, and made a vast impression. Feeling my eloquence beginning to fade before I had properly rounded off the period, I searched in my mind for a suitable climax. The sight of a mangy dog in the village gave me the idea. Looking the capitao straight in the eye, I said, as impressively as I could

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and as for you, Gombameti. Be careful! If I hear anything more of you I shall send two of my dogs We moved on, smiling, and over to fetch you to my camp!" went up to our house. Thoroughly frightened, for

"That seems to me to be a of course he understood the

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allusion, Gombameti threw his arms in front of his eyes to ward off the threatened evil, and shrank back against the tent. For a moment I fixed him with what I imagined looked like an "evil eye," and then, in silence, departed thoroughly satisfied that I had "put the wind up " Mitimoni. Indeed, from what I gathered on my way back to camp, my name was called blessed by the delighted villagers, though in the nostrils of the police it very properly stank.

the other. I could see something was wrong.

"Bring the boys in, Selimani," said R., and presently we heard them approaching.

"Come near," I answered to their ceremonious inquiry, and in they came-six sweatsmeared natives, each hiding his eyes behind his hands.

"What is it? What do you here so far from your homes?" I began.

"Oh, Great One, we have come for the bones of Capitao Gombameti," quavered the

The sequel to the affair was spokesman. not long delayed.

"What! Is he dead, then? I asked incredulously.

"You know it," he answered in a low voice. "You sent your dogs for him even as you said."

Eleven days after my return we were sitting at dinner in Siwezi Camp, when the cookboy rushed into the room to inform us that six boys had arrived from Mitimoni. "Oh!" said I. "What do lion got him?" they want?"

The cook looked down awkwardly at his feet and said nothing.

"Didn't you hear?" roared R. in a voice of thunder. (Severe toothache had very considerably shortened his already short enough temper.) But at that moment Selimani ran in. He had already been to bed, and his clothes showed signs of a very hasty toilet.

"Bwana, they've come for him," he burst out, his eyes rolling wildly in the lamplight.

Who's come for who?" I asked petulantly.

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"Good Lord! You mean a

"Two, oh, Great One! Two you said would come—and two came."

"But Gombameti isn't here,' explained R. "We haven't got him-or his bones!"

"The Great Ones but jest," answered the old man solemnly.

"But I tell you I know nothing about Gombameti. He is not here. This is foolish talk. I have no dogs. White men don't do things like that. Lions eat white men the same as black men," I protested.

"Two dogs would be sent, the Great One said, and two dogs were sent," intoned the old man. "This we know, and so we have come for the bones that we may bury them, or else the spirit of Gombameti will haunt the village."

We saw it was useless to argue further. The unfortunate words I had spoken had, by an extraordinary coincidence, come true. The fact that two lions had caught the man only gave additional colour to the prophecy, and now nothing on earth would ever convince the natives that I had not sent my "dogs to fetch the illfated capitao, as I said I would. Finally, I spoke again to the six men.

"Very well! To-night you shall sleep in my compound, and to-morrow we will speak further of these things; and for heaven's sake," I added irritably, "do take your hands from your eyes."

"Gombameti saw-Gombameti died," observed the old man in a sepulchral voice, as he turned and went out through the door.

It was a very sad-faced party that crept away from our camp the following day. We had had long talks throughout the morning, but had come no nearer towards convincing the natives of the error of their belief than we had been able to the previous night.

During one lull in the conversation my partner went out to the kitchen and came back with the leg bones of a waterbuck, which he solemnly handed to the committee. I roared with laughter, but it was immediately obvious that the jest only heightened their belief that we were deliberately playing with them. Anyway, in the end they went back to their village, carrying with them

my assurance that I would not again send my dogs to Mitimoni.

As events turned out, I was very wide of the mark in this prophecy, for hardly a week had passed before more messengers were back with the doleful news that two more people had been taken-one man and one woman. I recommended these people to strengthen their doors, and lock up early in the evening before the sun went down. Beyond that, I told them, I could do nothing.

From time to time word came down that more boys had been taken, and then one day a harassed party came into camp to report the death of one of the constables. I gathered that the remaining villagers thought that this man's death would appease me, and that I would now hold off the dogs altogether. They had apparently formed the idea that I hated the police, and had therefore sent my dogs to catch them. They explained away the other outrages by saying that my dogs did not "know" Mitimoni, and were not sure in which house the police lived.

We thought things over, and decided that it was about time we went up to Mitimoni to see exactly what was happening there. That some particularly bad man-eater was hanging round the village seemed tolerably certain, and it looked as though he had his lioness with him.

Accordingly we set off, and in due course reached the vil

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