Terrible Massacre in Mozambique

Feilding Star, Volume IX, Issue 89, 28 February 1888, Page 3

Terrible Massacre in Mozambique

By Electric Telegraph.— Copyright. (per united press \ssociAnov.) Mozambique, February 26. Intelligence has been received here that a terrible outrage has been committed by a strong and well-armed body of Arabs, who attacked and overpowered a number of native villages on the south-western shore of Lake Nyassa. The natives were at- «. tacked suddenly, and many were struck down and mercilessly slaughtered on the spot. Others fled to the water and sought a hiding place in the reeds which fringe the shores of the lake. The work of massacre and rapine being over in the villages, the Arab marauders turned their attention to the fugitives hiding in the rushes. Being unable to reach them from the land the Arabs set fire to the reeds, and the unhappy villagers had to choose between being burnt to death or devoured by the crocodiles which infest the waters of the lake on the one hand, and running the gauntlet between the spears of their enemies on the other hand. Many were seized by alligators and drawn beneath the waters, whilst those who fled from these monsters and the flames were ruthlessly speared by the Arabß as .they left the water. In* flamed by passion the Arabs next turned their attention to the different missions established by the Free Church of Scotland along the shores of the lake, and known collectively as livingstonia. The mission houses were attacked and plundered, but it is stated that the Europeans engaged in the mission work escaped without suffering any bodily- harm.