As I meant to let this movement run its full course and then attack the isolated detachment with the whole of my forces, I waited until I thought it was near Mlali. On the evening of the 23rd August, Captain Otto, who was encamped at Morogoro, was ordered to march off for Mlali during the night with three companies. He arrived there early on the 24th, just as English horsemen had taken possession of the depot. When I reached Otto’s Detachment the fight was in full swing. The country was, however, unsuitable for short decisive strokes, owing to the many steep hills which impeded movement. The other troops at Morogoro, except Captain Stemmermann’s Detachment, were ordered up by telephone. I myself went back again to Morogoro to talk things over. Stemmermann’s Detachment, to which, on account of the roads, the 4-inch _Königsberg_ gun and the howitzer battery were attached, was ordered to fall back along the eastern slopes of the Uluguru Mountains, and to delay the enemy there. The passes over the mountains themselves were closed by weak patrols. When I arrived once more at Mlali in the afternoon, the fight was still undecided. At several points the enemy had been driven back, and several people thought they had seen him suffer considerably. But by nightfall we had got so entangled in the mountains, and every movement had become so difficult and took so much time, that we halted. We found the night very cold, lying out on the hills without the carriers’ loads. Luckily, however, this fertile region had so far hardly suffered at all from the war, and a fowl roasted on a spit soon appeased our hunger.