Seyid and Moolu scoured the country at once for more carriers, but met with blank refusals on every side. Many natives passed the camp, but they seemed in unusual haste, and something of local importance was evidently going on. We were not long in doubt as to its nature. It was war. The Angoni were in force behind a neighboring hill, and had already killed one man. This might have been startling, but I treated it as a piece of gossip, until suddenly a long string of armed and painted men appeared in sight and rushed past me at the double. They kept perfect step, running in single file, their feet adorned with anklets of rude bells which jingled in time and formed quite a martial accompaniment. The center man held aloft a small red and white flag, and each warrior carried a large shield and several light barbed spears. The regiment was led by a fantastic looking creature, who played a hideous slogan on a short pan-pipe. This main body was followed at intervals by groups of twos and threes who had been hastily summoned from their work, and I must say the whole turnout looked very like business. The last of the warriors had scarcely disappeared before another procession of a different sort set in from the opposite direction. It consisted of the women and children from the threatened villages farther up the valley. It was a melting sight. The poor creatures were of all ages and sizes, from the tottering grandmother to the week old infant. On their heads they carried a miscellaneous collection of household gods, and even the little children were burdened with a calabash, a grass-mat, a couple of fowls, or a handful of sweet-potatoes. Probably the entire effects of the villages were represented in these loads. Amongst the fugitives were a few goats and one or two calves, and a troop of boys brought up the rear driving before them a herd of cows. The poor creatures quickened their pace as they passed my tent, and eyed me as furtively as if I and my men had been a detachment from the Angoni executing a flank movement. The hamlet opposite our camp, across the river, which had gladdened us the night before with its twinkling fires, its inhabitants sitting peacefully at their doors or fishing in the stream, was already deserted--the men to fight, the woman to flee for their lives they knew not whither. This is a common chapter in African history. Except among the very largest tribes no man can call his home his own for a month.