The enemy’s extension from Kondoa to the east drew our attention also to this hitherto little-known country. Captain Schulz was sent there with several companies, and found it to be an extraordinarily difficult and densely-wooded mountain district, interspersed with settlements of great fertility. A whole series of actions, in which one or more of our companies were engaged, and which resulted in severe loss to the enemy, now took place in this district. A strong hostile force tried to penetrate between the companies of Schulz’s Detachment and ourselves, probably with the intention of cutting off the detachment. But this attempt failed completely. Our troops pressed forward against this force from both sides and repulsed it. The old _Effendi_ (native officer), Yuma Mursal, acted with great skill on this occasion; he lay in ambush at a water-place, and fired at the English, who came there for water, with good effect; according to his observation, six of them were killed. During this period of fighting at Kondoa-Irangi the enemy’s battle casualties gradually mounted up to a considerable figure. If we add to them his losses by sickness, due to the youth of his white troops, who were not used to the Tropics, and were extraordinarily careless about precautions against tropical diseases, the total losses incurred by him during the Kondoa-Irangi period can hardly have been less than one thousand Europeans. CHAPTER V BETWEEN THE NORTHERN AND CENTRAL RAILWAYS I ASK the reader to imagine himself in the position of a Commander, with insufficient means, exposed to attack by superior numbers, who has continually to ask himself: What must I do in order to retain freedom of movement and hope? At the end of June, 1916, events in the other theatres of war began to exercise a decisive influence on our operations at Kondoa. The Belgians pushed in from near Lake Kivu and from Russisi, the English from the Kagera, west of Lake Victoria, and, since the middle of July, from Muansa also, and all these forces were converging on Tabora. Our troops stationed in the north-west were all combined under the command of General Wahle, who was at Tabora; and he gradually drew in his detachments from the frontiers towards that place. Owing to the difficulties of communication Headquarters had but meagre information of these events. Hostile detachments were also pressing in from the south-west, from the country between Lakes Tanganyika and Nyassa. Before them, our company fighting in the neighbourhood of Bismarckburg fell back slowly in a north-easterly direction towards Tabora. The two companies left behind to secure the Langenburg district gradually retreated on Iringa, followed by General Northey, whose division was equipped with all the appliances of modern warfare.