Kasongo. In it he told us that he was a prisoner, and Tippu Tib's son, Sefu, accompanied by ten thousand men armed with guns and swords, had marched from Kasongo with the intention of destroying us.

This was, however, only part of a general Arab rising, the Arabs having already murdered the Hodister Emin expeditions. The letter went on to say that Sefu's plan was, after killing us, to take all the country as far as Leopoldville; and that the only thing to save us and propitiate Sefu would be, either to give up our friend Gongo Lutete, or else to send his head as a present, and then depart out of the country, which Sefu maintained was his. Unless these two conditions were immediately complied with, Sefu would cross the Lomami River and fight us. We wrote a temporising letter, and, as soon as the carriers had started, broke