ABSTRACT

THE story of the origin of the war was as follows : Some six years prior to the time of which I write, the African Lakes Company had founded a small trading

station at Karonga's, towards the north-west end of the Lake Nyasa. About the same time a small party of slave-traders settled in Mpata and built their villages seven miles from Karonga's on a very important site, which commanded the road to Tanganyika by controlling both the ferry of the river and a pass. They had few followers, and settled here by the permission of the local tribe, the Wankonde-a peaceable agricultural people, who were also rich in cattle. For some time all went well. Soon the Slavers made excuses for putting an enclosure round their village, on the plea of the fear of lions, &c. This gradually grew into a stockade.