Although the clock had undoubtedly played a great part in provoking the natives to attack me, yet it must be remembered, in the first place, that they were very much averse to any white man coming into their country; and, further, being boundary natives—that is, natives living on the boundary of the country—they were naturally much more warlike than the tribes farther in the interior. They were used to fighting practically every day of their lives, and accustomed to resent the coming of any strangers into their country. The manner of my coming among them, so quietly, with the chief Katuni, and Muga-wa-diga, the witch doctor, had made them, for the moment, overlook their natural antipathy to a stranger, and they hardly knew how to attack me. They probably regretted having allowed me to come into the country so quietly, and the incident of the clock gave them the excuse for which they were looking to vent their natural enmity towards the stranger on me. This uprising had also happened before I had been able to get thoroughly acquainted with them, and consequently I had acquired no influence over them. I found that they had actually arranged a plot to kill me, which was to have been started by the man who had deserted from my camp. How it was to have been carried out I never learned, but it is most probable that he was to shoot me, and the fact of my having taken his rifle away upset all their plans. Certainly they had sufficient inducement to wish to get me out of the way, as many of them, no doubt, had cast covetous eyes on the quantity of trade goods and cattle I had with me. They would not have hesitated to kill me for such a store of loot, as they were accustomed to kill Arab traders passing through the country. I had not omitted to show them everything I had for trade, as an inducement to them to bring in the ivory. They naturally all took a great fancy to my possessions, but they had not all got ivory to trade for them, and an attack would have given a splendid excuse to loot the whole outfit.
I pitched my camp again as usual, and went about as if nothing had happened, and the natives came to trade, and mixed with my people as before; but I was never off my guard, and always carried my revolver with me wherever I went.