Next day we again reached Kwa-Direma, and none were sorry to be out of those hills. Meantime the operations that had been going on, on both flanks, with a view to attacking or surrounding the Ruhungu positions unaccountably failed to get to grips with the enemy, who, probably in fear of a rear attack, succeeded in secretly evacuating their stronghold while the mounted troops were working their way through the hills. This was to all a big disappointment, but the extremely awkward nature of the country proved again the enemy’s disconcerting ally and for him his saving. This operation was, perhaps, meant to be our greatest effort to force a decision—at least so did we, at the time, regard it. On the 9th of August we were back in Makindu, and on the 10th we proceeded along the road toward the Ruhungu position. Soon we found the road completely blocked by great trees that had been felled across it by the enemy, and in some places the road was also mined. Slowly we went forward throughout the day, investigating the level bush and the hill-sides as we went. Once about fifty enemy were sighted, and lost again in the bush. Once a mounted patrol of Sepoys fell in with the enemy, who surprised them when dismounted, and they lost their horses, and then their heads, while an advancing line of our men raked the bush with rifle-fire beyond them. Next day those horses, six of them, were found running free in the bush, and were caught and returned to their owners, one or two of them suffering from bullet wounds. In the late afternoon we built a boma (bush fence) protection and camped for the night on the road; and again moved forward in the morning into the Ruhungu position. Progress was slow while the position, which was a very strong one in its systematic completeness, was carefully investigated, covered by machine-guns trained on the hill-slopes ahead. The position was completely occupied at 11 a.m. and all reported clear. [Sidenote: RUHUNGU STRONGHOLD] Going over the position I was astonished at the work that had been spent on it. For instance, on the low ground at the position defending the road, a wide carpet of sharply pointed, dangerous-looking, hand-cut pegs had been staked out in front of the whole trench line to protect it, apparently, from cavalry charge. This original and ingenious “entanglement” could not have been constructed without many, many days of labour by many men. Then, too, in the hills above, regular subterranean caves, and pits, had been excavated everywhere for protection from the attacks of our aeroplanes, some of them even hewn out of the solid rock by the industry of many hands. In the afternoon we passed beyond Ruhungu, and in the evening camped by a small rivulet in low country east of the high Kanga mountain-top. Many small bush-log culverts on the road have here been destroyed by the enemy as they retired, and this has left the road impassable for transport until repairs are made.