On the fifth morning, or the 23rd April, the rain gave us a few hours' respite, during which we managed to wade through the Stygian quagmire reeking with noisomeness to the inundated river-bank. The soldiers commenced at 5 A.M. to convey the baggage across from bank to bank over a bridge which was the most rustic of the rustic kind. Only an ignorant African would have been satisfied with its small utility as a means to cross a deep and rapid body of water. Even for light-footed Wanyamwezi pagazis it was anything but comfortable to traverse. Only a professional tight-rope performer could have carried a load across with ease. To travel over an African bridge requires, first, a long leap from land to the limb of a tree (which may or may not be covered by water), followed by a long jump ashore. With 70 lbs. weight on his back, the carrier finds it difficult enough. Sometimes he is assisted by ropes extemporized from the long convolvuli which hang from almost every tree, but not always, these being deemed superfluities by the Washensi.

Fortunately the baggage was transferred without a single accident, and though the torrent was strong, the donkeys were dragged through the flood by vigorous efforts and much objurgation without a casualty. This performance of crossing the Ungerengeri occupied fully five hours, though energy, abuse, and fury enough were expended for an army.

Reloading and wringing our clothes dry, we set out from the horrible neighbourhood of the river, with its reek and filth, in a northerly direction, following a road which led up to easy and level ground. Two obtruding hills were thus avoided on our left, and after passing them we had shut out the view of the hateful valley.

I always found myself more comfortable and lighthearted while travelling than when chafing and fretting in camp at delays which no effort could avoid, and consequently I fear that some things, while on a march, may be tinted somewhat stronger than their appearance or merit may properly warrant. But I thought that the view opening before us was much more agreeable than the valley of Simbamwenni with all its indescribable fertility. It was a series of glades opening one after another between forest clumps of young trees, hemmed in distantly by isolated peaks and scattered mountains. Now and again, as we crested low eminences we caught sight of the blue Usagara mountains, bounding the horizon westerly and northerly, and looked down upon a vast expanse of plain which lay between.

At the foot of the lengthy slope, well-watered by bubbling springs and mountain rills, we found a comfortable khambi with well-made huts, which the natives call Simbo. It lies just two hours or five miles north-west of the Ungerengeri crossing. The ground is rocky, composed principally of quartzose detritus swept down by the constant streams. In the neighbourhood of these grow bamboo, the thickest of which was about two and a half inches in diameter; the "myombo," a very shapely tree, with a clean trunk like an ash, the "imbite," with large, fleshy leaves like the "mtamba," sycamore, plum-tree, the "ugaza," ortamarisk, and the "mgungu," a tree containing several wide branches with small leaves clustered together in a clump, and the silk-cotton tree.

Though there are no villages or settlements in view of Simbo Khambi, there are several clustered within the mountain folds, inhabited by Waseguhha somewhat prone to dishonest acts and murder.

The long broad plain visible from the eminences crossed between the Ungerengeri and Simbo was now before us, and became known to sorrowful memory subsequently, as the Makata Valley. The initial march was from Simbo, its terminus at Rehenneko, at the base of the Usagara mountains, six marches distant. The valley commences with broad undulations, covered with young forests of bamboo, which grow thickly along the streams, the dwarf fan-palm, the stately Palmyra, and the mgungu. These undulations soon become broken by gullies containing water, nourishing dense crops of cane reeds and broad- bladed grass, and, emerging from this district, wide savannah covered with tall grass open into view, with an isolated tree here and there agreeably breaking the monotony of the scene. The Makata is a wilderness containing but one village of the Waseguhha throughout its broad expanse. Venison, consequently, abounds within the forest clumps, and the kudu, hartebeest, antelope, and zebra may be seen at early dawn emerging into the open savannahs to feed. At night, the cyn-hyaena prowls about with its hideous clamour seeking for sleeping prey, man or beast.

The slushy mire of the savannahs rendered marching a work of great difficulty; its tenacious hold of the feet told terribly on men and animals. A ten-mile march required ten hours, we were therefore compelled to camp in the middle of this wilderness, and construct a new khambi, a measure which was afterwards adopted by half a dozen caravans.

The cart did not arrive until nearly midnight, and with it, besides three or four broken-down pagazis, came Bombay with the dolorous tale, that having put his load—consisting of the property tent, one large American axe, his two uniform coats, his shirts, beads and cloth, powder, pistol, and hatchet—on the ground, to go and assist the cart out of a quagmire, he had returned to the place where he had left it and could not find it, that he believed that some thieving Washensi, who always lurk in the rear of caravans to pick up stragglers, had decamped with it. Which dismal tale told me at black midnight was not received at all graciously, but rather with most wrathful words, all of which the penitent captain received as his proper due. Working myself into a fury,, I enumerated his sins to him; he had lost a goat at Muhalleh, he had permitted Khamisi to desert with valuable property at Imbiki; he had frequently shown culpable negligence in not looking after the donkeys, permitting them to be tied up at night without seeing that they had water, and in the mornings, when about to march, he preferred to sleep until 7 o'clock, rather than wake up early and saddle the donkeys, that we might start at 6 o'clock; he had shown of late great love for the fire, cowering like a bloodless man before it, torpid and apathetic; he had now lost the property-tent in the middle of the Masika season, by which carelessness the cloth bales would rot and become valueless; he had lost the axe which I should want at Ujiji to construct my boat; and finally, he had lost a pistol and hatchet, and a flaskful of the best powder. Considering all these things, how utterly incompetent he was to be captain, I would degrade him from his office and appoint Mabruki Burton instead. Uledi, also, following the example of Bombay, instead of being second captain, should give no orders to any soldiers in future, but should himself obey those given by Mabruki—the said Mabruki being worth a dozen Bombays, and two dozen Uledis; and so he was dismissed with orders to return at daylight to find the tent, axe, pistol, powder, and hatchet.

The next morning the caravan, thoroughly fatigued with the last day's exertions, was obliged to halt. Bombay was despatched after the lost goods; Kingaru, Mabruki the Great, and Mabruki the Little were despatched to bring back three doti-worth of grain, on which we were to subsist in the wilderness.

Three days passed away and we were still at camp, awaiting, with what patience we possessed, the return of the soldiers. In the meantime provisions ran very low, no game could be procured, the birds were so wild. Two days shooting procured but two potfuls of birds, consisting of grouse, quail, and pigeons. Bombay returned unsuccessfully from his search after the missing property, and suffered deep disgrace.

On the fourth day I despatched Shaw with two more soldiers, to see what had become of Kingaru and the two Mabrukis. Towards night he returned completely prostrated, with a violent attack of the mukunguru, or ague; but bringing the missing soldiers, who were thus left to report for themselves.

With most thankful hearts did we quit our camp, where so much anxiety of mind and fretfulness had been suffered, not heeding a furious rain, which, after drenching us all night, might have somewhat damped our ardor for the march under other circumstances. The road for the first mile led over reddish ground, and was drained by gentle slopes falling east and west; but, leaving the cover of the friendly woods, on whose eastern margin we had been delayed so long, we emerged into one of the savannahs, whose soil during the rain is as soft as slush and tenacious as thick mortar, where we were all threatened with the fate of the famous Arkansas traveller, who had sunk so low in one of the many quagmires in Arkansas county, that nothing but his tall "stove-pipe" hat was left visible.

Shaw was sick, and the whole duty of driving the foundering caravan devolved upon myself. The Wanyamwezi donkeys stuck in the mire as if they were rooted to it. As fast as one was flogged from his stubborn position, prone to the depths fell another, giving me a Sisyphean labour, which was maddening trader pelting rain, assisted by such men as Bombay and Uledi, who could not for a whole skin's sake stomach the storm and mire. Two hours of such a task enabled me to drag my caravan over a savannah one mile and a half broad; and barely had I finished congratulating myself over my success before I was halted by a deep ditch, which, filled with rain-water from the inundated savannahs, had become a considerable stream, breast-deep, flowing swiftly into the Makata. Donkeys had to be unloaded, led through a torrent, and loaded again on the other bank—an operation which consumed a full hour.

Presently, after straggling through a wood clump, barring our progress was another stream, swollen into a river. The bridge being swept away, we were obliged to swim and float our baggage over, which delayed us two hours more. Leaving this second river-bank, we splashed, waded, occasionally half-swimming, and reeled through mire, water-dripping grass and matama stalks, along the left bank of the Makata proper, until farther progress was effectually prevented for that day by a deep bend of the river, which we should be obliged to cross the next day.

Though but six miles were traversed during that miserable day, the march occupied ten hours.

Half dead with fatigue, I yet could feel thankful that it was not accompanied by fever, which it seemed a miracle to avoid; for if ever a district was cursed with the ague, the Makata wilderness ranks foremost of those afflicted. Surely the sight of the dripping woods enveloped in opaque mist, of the inundated country with lengthy swathes of tiger-grass laid low by the turbid flood, of mounds of decaying trees and canes, of the swollen river and the weeping sky, was enough to engender the mukunguru! The well-used khambi, and the heaps of filth surrounding it, were enough to create a cholera!

The Makata, a river whose breadth during the dry season is but forty feet, in the Masika season assumes the breadth, depth, and force of an important river. Should it happen to be an unusually rainy season, it inundates the great plain which stretches on either side, and converts it into a great lake. It is the main feeder of the Wami river, which empties into the sea between the ports of Saadani and Whinde. About ten miles north-east of the Makata crossing, the Great Makata, the Little Makata, a nameless creek, and the Rudewa river unite; and the river thus formed becomes known as the Wami. Throughout Usagara the Wami is known as the Mukondokwa. Three of these streams take their rise from the crescent-like Usagara range, which bounds the Makata plain south and south-westerly; while the Rudewa rises in the northern horn of the same range.

So swift was the flow of the Makata, and so much did its unsteady bridge, half buried in the water, imperil the safety of the property, that its transfer from bank to bank occupied fully five hours. No sooner had we landed every article on the other side, undamaged by the water, than the rain poured down in torrents that drenched them all, as if they had been dragged through the river. To proceed through the swamp which an hour's rain had formed was utterly out of the question. We were accordingly compelled to camp in a place where every hour furnished its quota of annoyance. One of the Wangwana soldiers engaged at Bagamoyo, named Kingaru, improved an opportunity to desert with another Mgwana's kit. My two detectives, Uledi (Grant's valet), and Sarmean, were immediately despatched in pursuit, both being armed with American breech-loaders. They went about their task with an adroitness and celerity which augured well for their success. In an hour they returned with the runaway, having found him hidden in the house of a Mseguhha chief called Kigondo, who lived about a mile from the eastern bank of the river, and who had accompanied Uledi and Sarmean to receive his reward, and render an account of the incident.

Kigondo said, when he had been seated, "I saw this man carrying a bundle, and running hard, by which I knew that he was deserting you. We (my wife and 1) were sitting in our little watch-hut, watching our corn; and, as the road runs close by, this man was obliged to come close to us. We called to him when he was near, saying, 'Master, where are you going so fast? Are you deserting the Musungu, for we know you belong to him, since you bought from us yesterday two doti worth of meat?' 'Yes,' said he, 'I am running away; I want to get to Simbamwenni. If you will take me there, I will give you a doti.' We said to him then, 'Come into our house, and we will talk it over quietly. When he was in our house in an inner room, we locked him up, and went out again to the watch; but leaving word with the women to look out for him. We knew that, if you wanted him, you would send askari (soldiers) after him. We had but lit our pipes when we saw two men armed with short guns, and having no loads, coming along the road, looking now and then on the ground, as if they were looking at footmarks. We knew them to be the men we were expecting; so we hailed them, and said, 'Masters, what are ye looking for?' They said, 'We are looking for a man who has deserted our master. Here are his footsteps. If you have been long in your hut you must have seen him, Can you tell us where he is?' We said, 'yes; he is in our house. If you will come with us, we will give him up to you; but your master must give us something for catching him.'"

As Kigondo had promised to deliver Kingaru up, there remained nothing further to do for Uledi and Sarmean but to take charge of their prisoner, and bring him and his captors to my camp on the western bank of the Makata. Kingaru received two dozen lashes, and was chained; his captor a doti, besides five khete of red coral beads for his wife.

That down-pour of rain which visited us the day we crossed the Makata proved the last of the Masika season. As the first rainfall which we had experienced occurred on the 23rd March, and the last on the 30th April, its duration was thirty-nine days. The seers of Bagamoyo had delivered their vaticinations concerning this same Masika with solemnity. "For forty days," said they, "rain would fall incessantly;" whereas we had but experienced eighteen days' rain. Nevertheless, we were glad that it was over, for we were tired of stopping day after day to dry the bales and grease the tools and ironware, and of seeing all things of cloth and leather rot visibly before our eyes.

The 1st of May found us struggling through the mire and water of the Makata with a caravan bodily sick, from the exertion and fatigue of crossing so many rivers and wading through marshes. Shaw was still suffering from his first mukunguru; Zaidi, a soldier, was critically ill with the small-pox; the kichuma-chuma, "little irons," had hold of Bombay across the chest, rendering him the most useless of the unserviceables; Mabruk Saleem, a youth of lusty frame, following the example of Bombay, laid himself down on the marshy ground, professing his total inability to breast the Makata swamp; Abdul Kader, the Hindi tailor and adventurer—the weakliest of mortal bodies—was ever ailing for lack of "force," as he expressed it in French, i.e. "strength," ever indisposed to work, shiftless, mock-sick, but ever hungry. "Oh! God," was the cry of my tired soul, "were all the men of my Expedition like this man I should be compelled to return. Solomon was. wise perhaps from inspiration, perhaps from observation; I was becoming wise by experience, and I was compelled to observe that when mud and wet sapped the physical energy of the lazily-inclined, a dog-whip became their backs, restoring them to a sound—some-times to an extravagant activity.

For thirty miles from our camp was the Makata plain an extensive swamp. The water was on an average one foot in depth; in some places we plunged into holes three, four, and even five feet deep. Plash, splash, plash, splash, were the only sounds we heard from the commencement of the march until we found the bomas occupying the only dry spots along the line of march. This kind of work continued for two days, until we came in sight of the Rudewa river, another powerful stream with banks brimful of rushing rain-water. Crossing a branch of the Rudewa, and emerging from the dank reedy grass crowding the western bank, the view consisted of an immense sheet of water topped by clumps of grass tufts and foliage of thinly scattered trees, bounded ten or twelve miles off by the eastern front of the Usagara mountain range. The acme of discomfort and vexation was realized on the five-mile march from the Rudewa branch. As myself and the Wangwana appeared with the loaded donkeys, the pagazis were observed huddled on a mound. When asked if the mound was the camp, they replied "No." "Why, then, do you stop here?"—Ugh! water plenty!!" "One drew a line across his loins to indicate the depth of water before us, another drew a line across his chest, another across his throat another held his hand over his head, by which he meant that we should have to swim. Swim five miles through a reedy marsh! It was impossible; it was also impossible that such varied accounts could all be correct. Without hesitation, therefore, I ordered the Wangwana to proceed with the animals. After three hours of splashing through four feet of water we reached dry land, and had traversed the swamp of Makata. But not without the swamp with its horrors having left a durable impression upon our minds; no one was disposed to forget its fatigues, nor the nausea of travel which it almost engendered. Subsequently, we had to remember its passage still more vividly, and to regret that we had undertaken the journey during the Masika season, when the animals died from this date by twos and threes, almost every day, until but five sickly worn-out beasts remained; when the Wangwana, soldiers, and pagazis sickened of diseases innumerable; when I myself was finally compelled to lie a-bed with an attack of acute dysentery which brought me to the verge of the grave. I suffered more, perhaps, than I might have done had I taken the proper medicine, but my over-confidence in that compound, called "Collis Brown's Chlorodyne," delayed the cure which ultimately resulted from a judicious use of Dover's powder. In no one single case of diarrhoea or acute dysentery had this "Chlorodyne," about which so much has been said, and written, any effect of lessening the attack whatever, though I used three bottles. To the dysentery contracted during, the transit of the Makata swamp, only two fell victims, and those were a pagazi and my poor little dog "Omar," my companion from India.

The only tree of any prominence in the Makata valley was the Palmyra palm (Borassus flabelliformis), and this grew in some places in numbers sufficient to be called a grove; the fruit was not ripe while we passed, otherwise we might have enjoyed it as a novelty. The other vegetation consisted of the several species of thorn bush, and the graceful parachute-topped and ever-green mimosa.

The 4th of May we were ascending a gentle slope towards the important village of Rehenneko, the first village near to which we encamped in Usagara. It lay at the foot of the mountain, and its plenitude and mountain air promised us comfort and health. It was a square, compact village, surrounded by a thick wall of mud, enclosing cone-topped huts, roofed with bamboo and holcus-stalks; and contained a population of about a thousand souls. It has several wealthy and populous neighbours, whose inhabitants are independent enough in their manner, but not unpleasantly so. The streams are of the purest water, fresh, and pellucid as crystal, bubbling over round pebbles and clean gravel, with a music delightful to hear to the traveller in search of such a sweetly potable element.

The bamboo grows to serviceable size in the neighbourhood of Rehenneko, strong enough for tent and banghy poles; and in numbers sufficient to supply an army. The mountain slopes are densely wooded with trees that might supply very good timber for building purposes.

We rested four days at this pleasant spot, to recruit ourselves, and to allow the sick and feeble time to recover a little before testing their ability in the ascent of the Usagara mountains.

The 8th of May saw us with our terribly jaded men and animals winding up the steep slopes of the first line of hills; gaining the summit of which we obtained a view remarkably grand, which exhibited as in a master picture the broad valley of the Makata, with its swift streams like so many cords of silver, as the sunshine played on the unshadowed reaches of water, with its thousands of graceful palms adding not a little to the charm of the scene, with the great wall of the Uruguru and Uswapanga mountains dimly blue, but sublime in their loftiness and immensity—forming a fit background to such an extensive, far-embracing prospect.

Turning our faces west, we found ourselves in a mountain world, fold rising above fold, peak behind peak, cone jostling cone; away to the north, to the west, to the south, the mountain tops rolled like so many vitrified waves; not one adust or arid spot was visible in all this scene. The diorama had no sudden changes or striking contrasts, for a universal forest of green trees clothed every peak, cone, and summit.

To the men this first day's march through the mountain region of Usagara was an agreeable interlude after the successive journey over the flats and heavy undulations of the maritime region, but to the loaded and enfeebled animals it was most trying. We were minus two by the time we had arrived at our camp, but seven miles from Rehenneko, our first instalment of the debt we owed to Makata. Water, sweet and clear, was abundant in the deep hollows of the mountains, flowing sometimes over beds of solid granite, sometimes over a rich red sandstone, whose soft substance was soon penetrated by the aqueous element, and whose particles were swept away constantly to enrich the valley below; and in other ravines it dashed,, and roared, miniature thunder, as it leaped over granite boulders and quartz rock.

The 9th of May, after another such an up-and-down course, ascending hills and descending into the twilight depths of deepening valleys, we came suddenly upon the Mukondokwa, and its narrow pent-up valley crowded with rank reedy grass, cane, and thorny bushes; and rugged tamarisk which grappled for existence with monster convolvuli, winding their coils around their trunks with such tenacity and strength that the tamarisk seemed grown but for their support.

The valley was barely a quarter of a mile broad in some places— at others it widened to about a mile. The hills on either side shot up into precipitous slopes, clothed ,with mimosa, acacia, and tamarisk, enclosing a river and valley whose curves and folds were as various as a serpent's.

Shortly after debouching into the Mukondokwa valley, we struck the road traversed by Captains Buxton and Speke in 1857, between Mbumi and Kadetamare (the latter place should be called Misonghi, Kadetamare being but the name of a chief). After following the left bank of the Mukondokwa, during which our route diverged to every point from south-east to west, north and northeast, for about an hour, we came to the ford. Beyond the ford, a short half-hour's march, we came to Kiora.

At this filthy village of Kiora, which was well-grounded with goat-dung, and peopled with a wonderful number of children for a hamlet that did not number twenty families, with a hot sun pouring on the limited open space, with a fury that exceeded 128 degrees Fahrenheit; which swarmed with flies and insects of known and unknown species; I found, as I had been previously informed, the third caravan, which had started out of Bagamoyo so well fitted and supplied. The leader, who was no other than the white man Farquhar, was sick-a-bed with swollen legs (Bright's disease), unable to move.

As he heard my voice, Farquhar staggered out of his tent, so changed from my spruce mate who started from Bagamoyo, that I hardly knew him at first. His legs were ponderous, elephantine, since his leg-illness was of elephantiasis, or dropsy. His face was of a deathly pallor, for he had not been out of his tent for two weeks.

A breezy hill, overlooking the village of Kiora, was chosen by me for my camping-ground, and as soon as the tents were pitched, the animals attended to, and a boma made of thorn bushes, Farquhar was carried up by four men into my tent. Upon being questioned as to the cause of his illness, he said he did not know what had caused it. He had no pain, he thought, anywhere. I asked, "Do you not sometimes feel pain on the right side?"—"Yes, I think I do; but I don't know."—" Nor over the left nipple sometimes—a quick throbbing, with a shortness of breath?"—" Yes, I think I have. I know I breathe quick sometimes." He said his only trouble was in the legs, which were swollen to an immense size. Though he had a sound appetite, he yet felt weak in the legs.

From the scant information of the disease and its peculiarities, as given by Farquhar himself, I could only make out, by studying a little medical book I had with me, that "a swelling of the legs, and sometimes of the body, might result from either heart, liver, or kidney disease." But I did not know to what to ascribe the disease, unless it was to elephantiasis—a disease most common in Zanzibar; nor did I know how to treat it in a man who, could not tell me whether he felt pain in his head or in his back, in his feet or in his chest.

It was therefore fortunate for me that I overtook him at Kiora; though he was about to prove a sore incumbrance to me, for he was not able to walk, and the donkey-carriage, after the rough experience of the Makata valley, was failing. I could not possibly leave him at Kiora, death would soon overtake him there; but how long I could convey a man in such a state, through a country devoid of carriage, was a question to be resolved by circumstances.

On the 11th of May, the third and fifth caravans, now united, followed up the right bank of the Mukondokwa, through fields of holcus, the great Mukondokwa ranges rising in higher altitude as we proceeded west, and enfolding us in the narrow river valley round about. We left Muniyi Usagara on our right, and soon after found hill-spurs athwart our road, which we were obliged to ascend and descend.

A march of eight miles from the ford of Misonghi brought us to another ford of the Mukondokwa, where we bid a long adieu to Burton's road, which led up to the Goma pass and up the steep slopes of Rubeho. Our road left the right bank and followed the left over a country quite the reverse of the Mukondokwa Valley, enclosed between mountain ranges. Fertile soils and spontaneous vegetation, reeking with miasma and overpowering from their odour, we had exchanged for a drouthy wilderness of aloetic and cactaceous plants, where the kolquall and several thorn bushes grew paramount.

Instead of the tree-clad heights, slopes and valleys, instead of cultivated fields, we saw now the confines of uninhabited wilderness. The hill-tops were bared of their bosky crowns, and revealed their rocky natures bleached white by rain and sun. Nguru Peak, the loftiest of the Usagara cones, stood right shoulderwards of us as we ascended the long slope of dun-grey soil which rose beyond the brown Mukondokwa on the left.

At the distance of two miles from the last ford, we found a neat khambi, situated close to the river, where it first broke into a furious rapid.

The next morning the caravan was preparing for the march, when I was informed that the "Bana Mdogo"—little master—Shaw, had not yet arrived with the cart, and the men in charge of it. Late the previous night I had despatched one donkey for Shaw, who had said he was too ill to walk, and another for the load that was on the cart; and had retired satisfied that they would soon arrive. My conclusion, when I learned in the morning that the people had not yet come in, was that Shaw was not aware that for five days we should have to march through a wilderness totally uninhabited. I therefore despatched Chowpereh, a Mgwana soldier, with the following note to him:—"You will, upon receipt of this order pitch the cart into the nearest ravine, gully, or river, as well as all the extra pack saddles; and come at once, for God's sake, for we must not starve here!"

One, two, three, and four hours were passed by me in the utmost impatience, waiting, but in vain, for Shaw. Having a long march before us, I could wait no longer, but went to meet his party myself. About a quarter of mile from the ford I met the van of the laggards—stout burly Chowpereh—and, O cartmakers, listen! he carried the cart on his head—wheels, shafts, body, axle, and all complete; he having found that carrying it was much easier than drawing it. The sight was such a damper to my regard for it as an experiment, that the cart was wheeled into the depths of the tall reeds, and there left. The central figure was Shaw himself, riding at a gait which seemed to leave it doubtful on my mind whether he or his animal felt most sleepy. Upon expostulating with him for keeping the caravan so long waiting when there was a march on hand, in a most peculiar voice—which he always assumed when disposed to be ugly-tempered—he said he had done the best he could; but as I had seen the solemn pace at which he rode, I felt dubious about his best endeavours; and of course there was a little scene, but the young European mtongi of an East African expedition must needs sup with the fellows he has chosen.

We arrived at Madete at 4 P.M., minus two donkeys, which had stretched their weary limbs in death. We had crossed the Mukondokwa about 3 P.M., and after taking its bearings and course, I made sure that its rise took place near a group of mountains about forty miles north by west of Nguru Peak. Our road led W.N.W., and at this place finally diverged from the river.

On the 14th, after a march of seven miles over hills whose sandstone and granite formation cropped visibly here and there above the surface, whose stony and dry aspect seemed reflected in every bush and plant, and having gained an altitude of about eight hundred feet above the flow of the Mukondokwa, we sighted the Lake of Ugombo—a grey sheet of water lying directly at the foot of the hill, from whose summit we gazed at the scene. The view was neither beautiful nor pretty, but what I should call refreshing; it afforded a pleasant relief to the eyes fatigued from dwelling on the bleak country around. Besides, the immediate neighbourhood of the lake was too tame to call forth any enthusiasm; there were no grandly swelling mountains, no smiling landscapes—nothing but a dun-brown peak, about one thousand feet high above the surface of the lake at its western extremity, from which the lake derived its name, Ugombo; nothing but a low dun-brown irregular range, running parallel with its northern shore at the distance of a mile; nothing but a low plain stretching from its western shore far away towards the Mpwapwa Mountains and Marenga Mkali, then apparent to us from our coign of vantage, from which extensive scene of dun-brownness we were glad to rest our eyes on the quiet grey water beneath.

Descending from the summit of the range, which bounded the lake east for about four hundred feet, we travelled along the northern shore. The time occupied in the journey from the eastern to the western extremity was exactly one hour and thirty minutes.

As this side represents its greatest length I conclude that the lake is three miles long by two miles greatest breadth. The immediate shores of the lake on all sides, for at least fifty feet from the water's edge, is one impassable morass nourishing rank reeds and rushes, where the hippopotamus' ponderous form has crushed into watery trails the soft composition of the morass as he passes from the lake on his nocturnal excursions; the lesser animals; such as the "mbogo" (buffalo), the "punda-terra" (zebra); the " twiga" (giraffe), the boar, the kudu, the hyrax or coney and the antelope; come here also to quench their thirst by night. The surface of the lake swarms with an astonishing variety of water-fowl; such as black swan, duck, ibis sacra cranes, pelicans; and soaring above on the look-out for their prey are fish-eagles and hawks, while the neighbourhood is resonant with the loud chirps of the guinea-fowls calling for their young, with the harsh cry of the toucan, the cooing of the pigeon, and the "to-whit, to-whoo" of the owl. From the long grass in its vicinity also issue the grating and loud cry of the florican, woodcock, and grouse.

Being obliged to halt here two days, owing to the desertion of the Hindi cooper Jako with one of my best carbines, I improved the opportunity of exploring the northern and southern shores of the lake. At the rocky foot of a low, humpy hill on the northern side, about fifteen feet above the present surface of the water I detected in most distinct and definite lines the agency of waves. From its base could be traced clear to the edge of the dank morass tiny lines of comminuted shell as plainly marked as the small particles which lie in rows on a beech after a receding tide. There is no doubt that the wave-marks on the sandstone might have been traced much higher by one skilled in geology; it was only its elementary character that was visible to me. Nor do I entertain the least doubt, after a two days' exploration of the neighbourhood, especially of the low plain at the western end, that this Lake of Ugombo is but the tail of what was once a large body of water equal in extent to the Tanganika; and, after ascending half way up Ugombo Peak, this opinion was confirmed when I saw the long-depressed line of plain at its base stretching towards the Mpwapwa Mountains thirty miles off, and thence round to Marenga Mkali, and covering all that extensive surface of forty miles in breadth, and an unknown length. A depth of twelve feet more, I thought, as I gazed upon it, would give the lake a length of thirty miles, and a breadth of ten. A depth of thirty feet would increase its length over a hundred miles, and give it a breadth of fifty, for such was the level nature of the plain that stretched west of Ugombo, and north of Marenga Mkali. Besides the water of the lake partook slightly of the bitter nature of the Matamombo creek, distant fifteen miles, and in a still lesser degree of that of Marenga Mkali, forty miles off.

Towards the end of the first day of our halt the Hindi cooper Jako arrived in camp, alleging as an excuse, that feeling fatigued he had fallen asleep in some bushes a few feet from the roadside. Having been the cause of our detention in the hungry wilderness of Ugombo, I was not in a frame of mind to forgive him; so, to prevent any future truant tricks on his part, I was under the necessity of including him with the chained gangs of runaways.

Two more of our donkeys died, and to prevent any of the valuable baggage being left behind, I was obliged to send Farquhar off on my own riding-ass to the village of Mpwapwa, thirty miles off, under charge of Mabruki Burton.

To save the Expedition from ruin, I was reluctantly compelled to come to the conclusion that it were better for me, for him, and concerned, that he be left with some kind chief of a village, with a six months' supply of cloth and beads, until he got well, than that he make his own recovery impossible.

The 16th of May saw us journeying over the plain which lies between Ugombo and Mpwapwa, skirting close, at intervals, a low range of trap-rock, out of which had become displaced by some violent agency several immense boulders. On its slopes grew the kolquall to a size which I had not seen in Abyssinia. In the plain grew baobab, and immense tamarind, and a variety of thorn.

Within five hours from Ugombo the mountain range deflected towards the north-east, while we continued on a north-westerly course, heading for the lofty mountain-line of the Mpwapwa. To our left towered to the blue clouds the gigantic Rubeho. The adoption of this new road to Unyanyembe by which we were travelling was now explained—we were enabled to avoid the passes and stiff steeps of Rubeho, and had nothing worse to encounter than a broad smooth plain, which sloped gently to Ugogo.

After a march of fifteen miles we camped at a dry mtoni, called Matamombo, celebrated for its pools of bitter. water of the colour of ochre. Monkeys and rhinoceroses, besides kudus, steinboks, and antelopes, were numerous in the vicinity. At this camp my little dog "Omar" died of inflammation of the bowels, almost on the threshold of the country—Ugogo—where his faithful watchfulness would have been invaluable to me.

The next day's march was also fifteen miles in length, through one interminable jungle of thorn-bushes. Within two miles of the camp, the road led up a small river bed, broad as an avenue, clear to the khambi of Mpwapwa; which was situated close to a number of streams of the purest water.

The following morning found us much fatigued after the long marches from Ugombo, and generally disposed to take advantage of the precious luxuries Mpwapwa offered to caravans fresh from the fly-plagued lands of the Waseguhha and Wadoe. Sheikh Thani—clever but innocently-speaking old Arab—was encamped under the grateful umbrage of a huge Mtamba sycamore, and had been regaling himself with fresh milk, luscious mutton, and rich bullock humps, ever since his arrival here, two days before; and, as he informed me, it did not suit his views to quit such a happy abundance so soon for the saline nitrous water of Marenga Mkali, with its several terekezas, and manifold disagreeables. "No!" said he to me, emphatically, "better stop here two or three days, give your tired animals some rest; collect all the pagazis you can, fill your inside with fresh milk, sweet potatoes, beef, mutton, ghee, honey, beans, matama, maweri, and nuts;—then, Inshallah! we shall go together through Ugogo without stopping anywhere." As the advice tallied accurately with my own desired and keen appetite for the good things he named, he had not long to wait for my assent to his counsel. "Ugogo," continued he, "is rich with milk and honey— rich in flour, beans and almost every eatable thing; and, Inshallah! before another week is gone we shall be in Ugogo!"

I had heard from passing caravans so many extremely favourable reports respecting Ugogo and its productions that it appeared to me a very Land of Promise, and I was most anxious to refresh my jaded stomach with some of the precious esculents raised in Ugogo; but when I heard that Mpwapwa also furnished some of those delicate eatables, and good things, most of the morning hours were spent in inducing the slow-witted people to part with them; and when, finally, eggs, milk, honey, mutton, ghee, ground matama and beans had been collected in sufficient quantities to produce a respectable meal, my keenest attention and best culinary talents were occupied for a couple of hours in converting this crude supply into a breakfast which could be accepted by and befit a stomach at once fastidious and famished, such as mine was. The subsequent healthy digestion of it proved my endeavours to have been eminently successful. At the termination of this eventful day, the following remark was jotted down in my diary: "Thank God! After fifty-seven days of living upon matama porridge and tough goat, I have enjoyed with unctuous satisfaction a real breakfast and dinner."

It was in one of the many small villages which are situated upon the slopes of the Mpwapwa that a refuge and a home for Farquhar was found until he should be enabled by restored health to start to join us at Unyanyembe.

Food was plentiful and of sufficient variety to suit the most fastidious—cheap also, much cheaper than we had experienced for many a day. Leucole, the chief of the village, with whom arrangements for Farquhar's protection and comfort were made, was a little old man of mild eye and very pleasing face, and on being informed that it was intended to leave the Musungu entirely under his charge, suggested that some man should be left to wait on him, and interpret his wishes to his people.

As Jako was the only one who could speak English, except Bombay and Selim, Jako was appointed, and the chief Leucole was satisfied. Six months' provisions of white beads, Merikani and Kaniki cloth, together with two doti of handsome cloth to serve as a present to Leucole after his recovery, were taken to Farquhar by Bombay, together with a Starr's carbine, 300 rounds of cartridge, a set of cooking pots, and 3 lbs. of tea.

Abdullah bin Nasib, who was found encamped here with five hundred pagazis, and a train of Arab and Wasawahili satellites, who revolved around his importance, treated me in somewhat the same manner that Hamed bin Sulayman treated Speke at Kasenge. Followed by his satellites, he came (a tall nervous-looking man, of fifty or thereabouts) to see me in my camp, and asked me if I wished to purchase donkeys. As all my animals were either sick or moribund, I replied very readily in the affirmative, upon which he graciously said he would sell me as many as I wanted, and for payment I could give him a draft on Zanzibar. I thought him a very considerate and kind person, fully justifying the encomiums lavished on him in Burton's 'Lake Regions of Central Africa,' and accordingly I treated him with the consideration due to so great and good a man. The morrow came, and with it went Abdullah bin Nasib, or "Kisesa," as he is called by the Wanyamwezi, with all his pagazis, his train of followers, and each and every one of his donkeys, towards Bagamoyo, without so much as giving a "Kwaheri," or good-bye.

At this place there are generally to be found from ten to thirty pagazis awaiting up-caravans. I was fortunate enough to secure twelve good people, who, upon my arrival at Unyanyembe, without an exception, voluntarily engaged themselves as carriers to Ujiji. With the formidable marches of Marenga Mkali in front, I felt thankful for this happy windfall,, which resolved the difficulties I had been anticipating; for I had but ten donkeys left, and four of these were so enfeebled that they were worthless as baggage animals.

Mpwapwa—so called by the Arabs, who have managed to corrupt almost every native word—is called "Mbambwa" by the Wasagara. It is a mountain range rising over 6,000 feet above the sea, bounding on the north the extensive plain which commences at Ugombo lake, and on the east that part of the plain which is called Marenga Mkali, which stretches away beyond the borders of Uhumba. Opposite Mpwapwa, at the distance of thirty miles or so, rises the Anak peak of Rubeho, with several other ambitious and tall brethren cresting long lines of rectilinear scarps, which ascend from the plain of Ugombo and Marenga Mkali as regularly as if they had been chiselled out by the hands of generations of masons and stonecutters.

Upon looking at Mpwapwa's greenly-tinted slopes, dark with many a densely-foliaged tree; its many rills flowing sweet and clear, nourishing besides thick patches of gum and thorn bush, giant sycamore and parachute-topped mimosa, and permitting my imagination to picture sweet views behind the tall cones above, I was tempted to brave the fatigue of an ascent to the summit. Nor was my love for the picturesque disappointed. One sweep of the eyes embraced hundreds of square miles of plain and mountain, from Ugombo Peak away to distant Ugogo, and from Rubeho and Ugogo to the dim and purple pasture lands of the wild, untamable Wahumba. The plain of Ugombo and its neighbour of Marenga Mkali, apparently level as a sea, was dotted here and there with "hillocks dropt in Nature's careless haste," which appeared like islands amid the dun and green expanse. Where the jungle was dense the colour was green, alternating with dark brown; where the plain appeared denuded of bush and brake it had a whity-brown appearance, on which the passing clouds now and again cast their deep shadows. Altogether this side of the picture was not inviting; it exhibited too plainly the true wilderness in its sternest aspect; but perhaps the knowledge that in the bosom of the vast plain before me there was not one drop of water but was bitter as nitre, and undrinkable as urine, prejudiced me against it, The hunter might consider it a paradise, for in its depths were all kinds of game to attract his keenest instincts; but to the mere traveller it had a stern outlook. Nearer, however, to the base of the Mpwapwa the aspect of the plain altered. At first the jungle thinned, openings in the wood appeared, then wide and naked clearings, then extensive fields of the hardy holcus, Indian corn, and maweri or bajri, with here and there a square tembe or village. Still nearer ran thin lines of fresh young grass, great trees surrounded a patch of alluvial meadow. A broad river-bed, containing several rivulets of water, ran through the thirsty fields, conveying the vivifying element which in this part of Usagara was so scarce and precious. Down to the river-bed sloped the Mpwapwa, roughened in some places by great boulders of basalt, or by rock masses, which had parted from a precipitous scarp, where clung the kolquall with a sure hold, drawing nourishment where every other green thing failed; clad in others by the hardy mimosa, which rose like a sloping bank of green verdure almost to the summit. And, happy sight to me so long a stranger to it, there were hundreds of cattle grazing, imparting a pleasing animation to the solitude of the deep folds of the mountain range.

But the fairest view was obtained by looking northward towards the dense group of mountains which buttressed the front range, facing towards Rubeho. It was the home of the winds, which starting here and sweeping down the precipitous slopes and solitary peaks on the western side, and gathering strength as they rushed through the prairie-like Marenga Mkali, howled through Ugogo and Unyamwezi with the force of a storm, It was also the home of the dews, where sprang the clear springs which cheered by their music the bosky dells below, and enriched the populous district of Mpwapwa. One felt better, stronger, on this breezy height, drinking in the pure air and feasting the eyes on such a varied landscape as it presented, on spreading plateaus green as lawns, on smooth rounded tops, on mountain vales containing recesses which might charm a hermit's soul, on deep and awful ravines where reigned a twilight gloom, on fractured and riven precipices, on huge fantastically-worn boulders which overtopped them, on picturesque tracts which embraced all that was wild, and all that was poetical in Nature.

Mpwapwa, though the traveller from the coast will feel grateful for the milk it furnished after being so long deprived of it, will be kept in mind as a most remarkable place for earwigs. In my tent they might be counted by thousands; in my slung cot they were by hundreds; on my clothes they were by fifties; on my neck and head they were by scores. The several plagues of locusts, fleas, and lice sink into utter insignificance compared with this fearful one of earwigs. It is true they did not bite, and they did not irritate the cuticle, but what their presence and numbers suggested was something so horrible that it drove one nearly insane to think of it. Who will come to East Africa without reading the experiences of Burton and Speke? Who is he that having read them will not remember with horror the dreadful account given by Speke of his encounters with these pests? My intense nervous watchfulness alone, I believe, saved me from a like calamity.

Second to the earwigs in importance and in numbers were the white ants, whose powers of destructiveness were simply awful. Mats, cloth, portmanteaus, clothes, in short, every article I possessed, seemed on the verge of destruction, and, as I witnessed their voracity, I felt anxious lest my tent should be devoured while I slept. This was the first khambi since leaving the coast where their presence became a matter of anxiety; at all other camping places hitherto the red and black ants had usurped our attention, but at Mpwapwa the red species were not seen, while the black were also very scarce.

After a three days' halt at Mpwapwa I decided of a march to Marenga Mkali, which should be uninterrupted until we reached Mvumi in Ugogo, where I should be inducted into the art of paying tribute to the Wagogo chiefs. The first march to Kisokweh was purposely made short, being barely four miles, in order to enable Sheikh Thani, Sheikh Hamed, and five or six Wasawahili caravans to come up with me at Chunyo on the confines of Marenga Mkali.



CHAPTER VII. MARENGA MKALI, UGOGO, AND UYANZI, TO UNYANYEMBE.

Mortality amongst the baggage animals.—The contumacious Wagogo— Mobs of Maenads.—Tribute paying.—Necessity of prudence.—Oration of the guide.—The genuine "Ugogians."—Vituperative power.—A surprised chief.—The famous Mizanza.—Killing hyaenas.—The Greeks and Romans of Africa.—A critical moment.—The "elephant's back."— The wilderness of Ukimbu.—End of the first stage of the search.— Arrival at Unyanyembe.

The 22nd of May saw Thani and Hamed's caravans united with my own at Chunyo, three and a half hours' march from Mpwapwa. The road from the latter place ran along the skirts of the Mpwapwa range; at three or four places it crossed outlying spurs that stood isolated from the main body of the range. The last of these hill spurs, joined by an elevated cross ridge to the Mpwapwa, shelters the tembe of Chunyo, situated on the western face, from the stormy gusts that come roaring down the steep slopes. The water of Chunyo is eminently bad, in fact it is its saline-nitrous nature which has given the name Marenga Mkali—bitter water—to the wilderness which separates Usagara from Ugogo. Though extremely offensive to the palate, Arabs and the natives drink it without fear, and without any bad results; but they are careful to withhold their baggage animals from the pits. Being ignorant of its nature, and not exactly understanding what precise location was meant by Marenga Mkali, I permitted the donkeys to be taken to water, as usual after a march; and the consequence was calamitous in the extreme. What the fearful swamp of Makata had spared, the waters of Marenga Mkali destroyed. In less than five days after our departure from Chunyo or Marenga Mali, five out of the nine donkeys left to me at the time—the five healthiest animals—fell victims.

We formed quite an imposing caravan as we emerged from inhospitable Chunyo, in number amounting to about four hundred souls. We were strong in guns, flags, horns, sounding drums and noise. To Sheikh Hamed, by permission of Sheikh Thani, and myself was allotted the task of guiding and leading this great caravan through dreaded Ugogo; which was a most unhappy selection, as will be seen hereafter.

Marenga Mali, over thirty miles across, was at last before us. This distance had to be traversed within thirty-six hours, so that the fatigue of the ordinary march would be more than doubled by this. From Chunyo to Ugogo not one drop of water was to be found. As a large caravan, say over two hundred souls, seldom travels over one and three-quarter miles per hour, a march of thirty miles would require seventeen hours of endurance without water and but little rest. East Africa generally possessing unlimited quantities of water, caravans have not been compelled for lack of the element to have recourse to the mushok of India and the khirbeh of Egypt. Being able to cross the waterless districts by a couple of long marches, they content themselves for the time with a small gourdful, and with keeping their imaginations dwelling upon the copious quantities they will drink upon arrival at the watering-place.

The march through this waterless district was most monotonous, and a dangerous fever attacked me, which seemed to eat into my very vitals. The wonders of Africa that bodied themselves forth in the shape of flocks of zebras, giraffes, elands, or antelopes, galloping over the jungleless plain, had no charm for me; nor could they serve to draw my attention from the severe fit of sickness which possessed me. Towards the end of the first march I was not able to sit upon the donkey's back; nor would it do, when but a third of the way across the wilderness, to halt until the next day; soldiers were therefore detailed to carry me in a hammock, and, when the terekeza was performed in the afternoon, I lay in a lethargic state, unconscious of all things. With the night passed the fever, and, at 3 o'clock in the morning, when the march was resumed, I was booted and spurred, and the recognized mtongi of my caravan once more. At 8 A.M. we had performed the thirty-two miles. The wilderness of Marenga Mkali had been passed and we had entered Ugogo, which was at once a dreaded land to my caravan, and a Land of Promise to myself.

The transition from the wilderness into this Promised Land was very gradual and easy. Very slowly the jungle thinned, the cleared land was a long time appearing, and when it had finally appeared, there were no signs of cultivation until we could clearly make out the herbage and vegetation on some hill slopes to our right running parallel with our route, then we saw timber on the hills, and broad acreage under cultivation—and, lo! as we ascended a wave of reddish earth covered with tall weeds and cane, but a few feet from us, and directly across our path, were the fields of matama and grain we had been looking for, and Ugogo had been entered an hour before.

The view was not such as I expected. I had imagined a plateau several hundred feet higher than Marenga Mkali, and an expansive view which should reveal Ugogo and its characteristics at once. But instead, while travelling from the tall weeds which covered the clearing which had preceded the cultivated parts, we had entered into the depths of the taller matama stalks, and, excepting some distant hills near Mvumi, where the Great Sultan lived—the first of the tribe to whom we should pay tribute—the view was extremely limited.

However, in the neighbourhood of the first village a glimpse at some of the peculiar features of Ugogo was obtained, and there was a vast plain—now flat, now heaving upwards, here level as a table, there tilted up into rugged knolls bristling with scores of rough boulders of immense size, which lay piled one above another as if the children of a Titanic race had been playing at house-building. Indeed, these piles of rounded, angular, and riven rock formed miniature hills of themselves; and appeared as if each body had been ejected upwards by some violent agency beneath. There was one of these in particular, near Mvumi, which was so large, and being slightly obscured from view by the outspreading branches of a gigantic baobab, bore such a strong resemblance to a square tower of massive dimensions, that for a long time I cherished the idea that I had discovered something most interesting which had strangely escaped the notice of my predecessors in East Africa. A nearer view dispelled the illusion, and proved it to be a huge cube of rock, measuring about forty feet each way. The baobabs were also particularly conspicuous on this scene, no other kind of tree being visible in the cultivated parts. These had probably been left for two reasons: first, want of proper axes for felling trees of such enormous growth; secondly, because during a famine the fruit of the baobab furnishes a flour which, in the absence of anything better, is said to be eatable and nourishing.

The first words I heard in Ugogo were from a Wagogo elder, of sturdy form, who in an indolent way tended the flocks, but showed a marked interest in the stranger clad in white flannels, with a Hawkes' patent cork solar topee on his head, a most unusual thing in Ugogo, who came walking past him, and there were "Yambo, Musungu, Yambo, bana, bana," delivered with a voice loud enough to make itself heard a full mile away. No sooner had the greeting been delivered than the word "Musungu" seemed to electrify his entire village; and the people of other villages, situated at intervals near the road, noting the excitement that reigned at the first, also participated in the general frenzy which seemed suddenly to have possessed them. I consider my progress from the first village to Mvumi to have been most triumphant; for I was accompanied by a furious mob of men, women, and children, all almost as naked as Mother Eve when the world first dawned upon her in the garden of Eden, fighting, quarrelling, jostling, staggering against each other for the best view of the white man, the like of whom was now seen for the first time in this part of Ugogo. The cries of admiration, such as "Hi-le!" which broke often and in confused uproar upon my ear, were not gratefully accepted, inasmuch as I deemed many of them impertinent. A respectful silence and more reserved behaviour would have won my esteem; but, ye powers, who cause etiquette to be observed in Usungu,* respectful silence, reserved behaviour, and esteem are terms unknown in savage Ugogo. Hitherto I had compared myself to a merchant of Bagdad travelling among the Kurds of Kurdistan, selling his wares of Damascus silk, kefiyehs, &c.; but now I was compelled to lower my standard, and thought myself not much better than a monkey in a zoological collection. One of my soldiers requested them to lessen their vociferous noise; but the evil-minded race ordered him to shut up, as a thing unworthy to speak to the Wagogo! When I imploringly turned to the Arabs for counsel in this strait, old Sheikh Thani, always worldly wise, said, "Heed them not; they are dogs who bite besides barking." * White man's land.

At 9 A.M. we were in our boma, near Mvumi village; but here also crowds of Wagogo came to catch a glimpse of the Musungu, whose presence was soon made known throughout the district of Mvumi. But two hours later I was oblivious of their endeavours to see me; for, despite repeated doses of quinine, the mukunguru had sure hold of me.

The next day was a march of eight miles, from East Mvumi to West Mvumi, where lived the Sultan of the district. The quantity and variety of provisions which arrived at our boma did not belie the reports respecting the productions of Ugogo. Milk, sour and sweet, honey, beans, matama, maweri, Indian corn, ghee, pea-nuts, and a species of bean-nut very like a large pistachio or an almond, water-melons, pumpkins, mush-melons, and cucumbers were brought, and readily exchanged for Merikani, Kaniki, and for the white Merikani beads and Sami-Sami, or Sam-Sam. The trade and barter which progressed in the camp from morning till night reminded me of the customs existing among the Gallas and Abyssinians. Eastward, caravans were obliged to despatch men with cloth, to purchase from the villagers. This was unnecessary in Ugogo, where the people voluntarily brought every vendible they possessed to the camp. The smallest breadth of white or blue cloth became saleable and useful in purchasing provisions—even a loin-cloth worn threadbare.

The day after our march was a halt. We had fixed this day for bearing the tribute to the Great Sultan of Mvumi. Prudent and cautious Sheikh Thani early began this important duty, the omission of which would have been a signal for war. Hamed and Thani sent two faithful slaves, well up to the eccentricities of the Wagogo sultans—well spoken, having glib tongues and the real instinct for trade as carried on amongst Orientals. They bore six doti of cloths, viz., one doti of Dabwani Ulyah contributed by myself, also one doti of Barsati from me, two doti Merikani Satine from Sheikh Thani, and two doti of Kaniki from Sheikh Hamed, as a first instalment of the tribute. The slaves were absent a full hour, but having wasted their powers of pleading, in vain, they returned with the demand for more, which Sheikh Thani communicated to me in this wise:

"Auf! this Sultan is a very bad man—a very bad man indeed; he says, the Musungu is a great man, I call him a sultan; the Musungu is very rich, for he has several caravans already gone past; the Musungu must pay forty doti, and the Arabs must pay twelve doti each, for they have rich caravans. It is of no use for you to tell me you are all one caravan, otherwise why so many flags and tents? Go and bring me sixty doti, with less I will not be satisfied."

I suggested to Sheikh Thani, upon hearing this exorbitant demand, that had I twenty Wasungu* armed with Winchester repeating rifles, the Sultan might be obliged to pay tribute to me; but Thani prayed and begged me to be cautious lest angry words might irritate the Sultan and cause him to demand a double tribute, as he was quite capable of doing so; "and if you preferred war," said he, "your pagazis would all desert, and leave you and your cloth to the small mercy of the Wagogo." But I hastened to allay his fears by telling Bombay, in his presence, that I had foreseen such demands on the part of the Wagogo, and that having set aside one hundred and twenty doti of honga cloths, I should not consider myself a sufferer if the Sultan demanded and I paid forty cloths to him; that he must therefore open the honga bale, and permit Sheikh Thani to extract such cloths as the Sultan might like.

Sheikh Thani, having put on the cap of consideration and joined heads with Hamed and the faithful serviles, thought if I paid twelve doti, out of which three should be of Ulyah+ quality, that the Sultan might possibly condescend to accept our tribute; supposing he was persuaded by the oratorical words of the "Faithfuls," that the Musungu had nothing with him but the mashiwa (boat), which would be of no use to him, come what might,—with which prudent suggestion the Musungu concurred, seeing its wisdom. * White men. + Best, or superior.

The slaves departed, bearing this time from our boma thirty doti, with our best wishes for their success. In an hour they returned with empty hands, but yet unsuccessful. The Sultan demanded six doti of Merikani, and a fundo of bubu, from the Musungu; and from the Arabs and other caravans, twelve doti more. For the third time the slaves departed for the Sultan's tembe, carrying with them six doti Merikani and a fundo of bubu from myself, and ten doti from the Arabs. Again they returned to us with the Sultan's words, "That, as the doti of the Musungu were short measure, and the cloths of the Arabs of miserable quality, the Musungu must send three doti full measure, and the Arabs five doti of Kaniki." My three doti were at once measured out with the longest fore-arm—according to Kigogo measure—and sent off by Bombay; but the Arabs, almost in despair, declared they would be ruined if they gave way to such demands, and out of the five doti demanded sent only two, with a pleading to the Sultan that he would consider what was paid as just and fair Muhongo, and not ask any more. But the Sultan of Mvumi was by no means disposed to consider any such proposition, but declared he must have three doti, and these to be two of Ulyah cloth, and one Kitambi Barsati, which, as he was determined to obtain, were sent to him heavy with the deep maledictions of Sheikh Hamed and the despairing sighs of sheikh Thani.

Altogether the sultanship of a district in Ugogo must be very remunerative, besides being a delightful sinecure, so long as the Sultan has to deal with timid Arab merchants who fear to exhibit anything approaching to independence and self-reliance, lest they might be mulcted in cloth. In one day from one camp the sultan received forty-seven doti, consisting of Merikani, Kaniki, Barsati, and Dabwani, equal to $35.25, besides seven doti of superior cloths, consisting of Rehani, Sohari, and Daobwani Ulyah, and one fundo of Bubu, equal to $14.00, making a total of $49.25—a most handsome revenue for a Mgogo chief.

On the 27th May we gladly shook the dust of Mvumi from our feet, and continued on our route—ever westward. Five of my donkeys had died the night before, from the effects of the water of Marenga Mkali. Before leaving the camp of Mvumi, I went to look at their carcases; but found them to have been clean picked by the hyaenas, and the bones taken possession of by an army of white-necked crows.

As we passed the numerous villages, and perceived the entire face of the land to be one vast field of grain, and counted the people halted by scores on the roadside to feast their eyes with a greedy stare on the Musungu, I no longer wondered at the extortionate demands of the Wagogo. For it was manifest that they had but to stretch out their hands to possess whatever the wealth of a caravan consisted of; and I began to think better of the people who, knowing well their strength, did not use it—of people who were intellectual enough to comprehend that their interest lay in permitting the caravans to pass on without attempting any outrage.

Between Mvumi and the nest Sultan's district, that of Matamburu, I counted no less than twenty-five villages, scattered over the clayey, coloured plain. Despite the inhospitable nature of the plain, it was better cultivated than any part of any other country we had seen since leaving Bagamoyo.

When we had at last arrived at our boma of Matamburu, the same groups of curious people, the same eager looks, the same exclamations of surprise, the same, peals of laughter, at something they deemed ludicrous in the Musungu's dress or manner, awaited us, as at Mvumi. The Arabs being "Wakonongo" travellers, whom they saw every day, enjoyed a complete immunity from the vexations which we had to endure.

The Sultan of Matamburu, a man of herculean form, and massive head well set on shoulders that might vie with those of Milo, proved to be a very reasonable person. Not quite so powerful as the Sultan of Mvumi, he yet owned a fair share of Ugogo and about forty villages, and could, if he chose, have oppressed the mercantile souls of my Arab companions, in the same way as he of Mvumi. Four doti of cloth were taken to him as a preliminary offering to his greatness, which he said he would accept, if the Arabs and Musungu would send him four more. As his demands were so reasonable, this little affair was soon terminated to everybody's satisfaction; and soon after, the kirangozi of Sheikh Hamed sounded the signal for the morrow's march.

At the orders of the same Sheikh, the kirangozi stood up to speak before the assembled caravans. "Words, words, from the Bana," he shouted. "Give ear, kirangozis! Listen, children of Unyamwezi! The journey is for to-morrow! The road is crooked and bad, bad! The jungle is there, and many Wagogo lie hidden within it! Wagogo spear the pagazis, and cut the throats of those who carry mutumba (bales) and ushanga (beads)! The Wagogo have been to our camp, they have seen your bales; to-night they seek the jungle: to-morrow watch well, O Wanyamwezi! Keep close together, lag not behind! Kirangozis walk slow, that the weak, the sick, and the young may keep up with the strong! Take two rests on the journey! These are the words of the Bana (master). Do you hear them, Wanyamwezi? (A loud shout in the affirmative from all.) Do you understand them well? (another chorus); then Bas;" having said which, the eloquent kirangozi retired into the dark night, and his straw hut.

The march to Bihawana, our next camp, was rugged and long, through a continuous jungle of gums and thorns, up steep hills and finally over a fervid plain, while the sun waxed hotter and hotter as it drew near the meridian, until it seemed to scorch all vitality from inanimate nature, while the view was one white blaze, unbearable to the pained sight, which sought relief from the glare in vain. Several sandy watercourses, on which were impressed many a trail of elephants, were also passed on this march. The slope of these stream-beds trended south-east and south.

In the middle of this scorching plain stood the villages of Bihawana, almost undistinguishable, from the extreme lowness of the huts, which did not reach the height of the tall bleached grass which stood smoking in the untempered heat.

Our camp was in a large boma, about a quarter of a mile from the Sultan's tembe. Soon after arriving at the camp, I was visited by three Wagogo, who asked me if I had seen a Mgogo on the road with a woman and child. I was about to answer, very innocently, "Yes," when Mabruki—cautious and watchful always for the interests of the master—requested me not to answer, as the Wagogo, as customary, would charge me with having done away with them, and would require their price from me. Indignant at the imposition they were about to practise upon me, I was about to raise my whip to flog them out of the camp, when again Mabruki, with a roaring voice, bade me beware, for every blow would cost me three or four doti of cloth. As I did not care to gratify my anger at such an expense, I was compelled to swallow my wrath, and consequently the Wagogo escaped chastisement.

We halted for one day at this place, which was a great relief to me, as I was suffering severely from intermittent fever, which lasted in this case two weeks, and entirely prevented my posting my diary in full, as was my custom every evening after a march.

The Sultan of Bihawana, though his subjects were evil-disposed, and ready-handed at theft and murder, contented himself with three doti as honga. From this chief I received news of my fourth caravan, which had distinguished itself in a fight with some outlawed subjects of his; my soldiers had killed two who had attempted, after waylaying a couple of my pagazis, to carry away a bale of cloth and a bag of beads; coming up in time, the soldiers decisively frustrated the attempt. The Sultan thought that if all caravans were as well guarded as mine were, there would be less depredations committed on them while on the road; with which I heartily agreed.

The next sultan's tembe through whose territory we marched, this being on the 30th May, was at Kididimo, but four miles from Bihawna. The road led through a flat elongated plain, lying between two lengthy hilly ridges, thickly dotted with the giant forms of the baobab. Kididimo is exceedingly bleak in aspect. Even the faces of the Wagogo seemed to have contracted a bleak hue from the general bleakness around. The water of the pits obtained in the neighbourhood had an execrable flavor, and two donkeys sickened and died in less than an hour from its effects. Man suffered nausea and a general irritability of the system, and accordingly revenged himself by cursing the country and its imbecile ruler most heartily. The climax came, however, when Bombay reported, after an attempt to settle the Muhongo, that the chief's head had grown big since he heard that the Musungu had come, and that its "bigness" could not be reduced unless he could extract ten doti as tribute. Though the demand was large, I was not in a humour—being feeble, and almost nerveless, from repeated attacks of the Mukunguru—to dispute the sum: consequently it was paid without many words. But the Arabs continued the whole afternoon negotiating, and at the end had to pay eight doti each.

Between Kididimo and Nyambwa, the district of the Sultan Pembera Pereh, was a broad and lengthy forest and jungle inhabited by the elephant, rhinoceros, zebra, deer, antelope, and giraffe. Starting at dawn of the 31st; we entered the jungle, whose dark lines and bosky banks were clearly visible from our bower at Kididimo; and, travelling for two hours, halted for rest and breakfast, at pools of sweet water surrounded by tracts of vivid green verdure, which were a great resort for the wild animals of the jungle, whose tracks were numerous and recent. A narrow nullah, shaded deeply with foliage, afforded excellent retreats from the glaring sunshine. At meridian, our thirst quenched, our hunger satisfied, our gourds refilled, we set out from the shade into the heated blaze of hot noon. The path serpentined in and out of jungle, and thin forest, into open tracts of grass bleached white as stubble, into thickets of gums and thorns, which emitted an odour as rank as a stable; through clumps of wide-spreading mimosa and colonies of baobab, through a country teeming with noble game, which, though we saw them frequently, were yet as safe from our rifles as if we had been on the Indian Ocean. A terekeza, such as we were now making, admits of no delay. Water we had left behind at noon: until noon of the next day not a drop was to be obtained; and unless we marched fast and long on this day, raging thirst would demoralize everybody. So for six long weary hours we toiled bravely; and at sunset we camped, and still a march of two hours, to be done before the sun was an hour high, intervened between us and our camp at Nyambwa. That night the men bivouacked under the trees, surrounded by many miles of dense forest, enjoying the cool night unprotected by hat or tent, while I groaned and tossed throughout the night in a paroxysm of fever.

The morn came; and, while it was yet young, the long caravan, or string of caravans, was under way. It was the same forest, admitting, on the narrow line which we threaded, but one man at a time. Its view was as limited. To our right and left the forest was dark and deep. Above was a riband of glassy sky flecked by the floating nimbus. We heard nothing save a few stray notes from a flying bird, or the din of the caravans as the men sang, or hummed, or conversed, or shouted, as the thought struck them that we were nearing water. One of my pagazis, wearied and sick, fell, and never rose again. The last of the caravan passed him before he died.

At 7 A.M. we were encamped at Nyambwa, drinking the excellent water found here with the avidity of thirsty camels. Extensive fields of grain had heralded the neighbourhood of the villages, at the sight of which we were conscious that the caravan was quickening its pace, as approaching its halting-place. As the Wasungu drew within the populated area, crowds of Wagogo used their utmost haste to see them before they passed by. Young and old of both genders pressed about us in a multitude—a very howling mob. This excessive demonstrativeness elicited from my sailor overseer the characteristic remark, " Well, I declare, these must be the genuine Ugogians, for they stare! stare—there is no end to their staring. I'm almost tempted to slap 'em in the face!" In fact, the conduct of the Wagogo of Nyambwa was an exaggeration of the general conduct of Wagogo. Hitherto, those we had met had contented themselves with staring and shouting; but these outstepped all bounds, and my growing anger at their excessive insolence vented itself in gripping the rowdiest of them by the neck, and before he could recover from his astonishment administering a sound thrashing with my dog-whip, which he little relished. This proceeding educed from the tribe of starers all their native power of vituperation and abuse, in expressing which they were peculiar. Approaching in manner to angry tom-cats, they jerked their words with something of a splitting hiss and a half bark. The ejaculation, as near as I can spell it phonetically, was "hahcht" uttered in a shrill crescendo tone. They paced backwards and forwards, asking themselves, "Are the Wagoga to be beaten like slaves by this Musungu? A Mgogo is a Mgwana (a free man); he is not used to be beaten,— hahcht." But whenever I made motion, flourishing my whip, towards them, these mighty braggarts found it convenient to move to respectable distances from the irritated Musungu.

Perceiving that a little manliness and show of power was something which the Wagogo long needed, and that in this instance it relieved me from annoyance, I had recourse to my whip, whose long lash cracked like a pistol shot, whenever they overstepped moderation. So long as they continued to confine their obtrusiveness to staring, and communicating to each other their opinions respecting my complexion, and dress, and accoutrements, I philosophically resigned myself in silence for their amusement; but when they pressed on me, barely allowing me to proceed, a few vigorous and rapid slashes right and left with my serviceable thong, soon cleared the track.

Pembera Pereh is a queer old man, very small, and would be very insignificant were he not the greatest sultan in Ugogo; and enjoying a sort of dimediate power over many other tribes. Though such an important chief, he is the meanest dressed of his subjects,—is always filthy,—ever greasy—eternally foul about the mouth; but these are mere eccentricities: as a wise judge, he is without parallel, always has a dodge ever ready for the abstraction of cloth from the spiritless Arab merchants, who trade with Unyanyembe every year; and disposes with ease of a judicial case which would overtask ordinary men.

Sheikh Hamed, who was elected guider of the united caravans now travelling through Ugogo, was of such a fragile and small make, that he might be taken for an imitation of his famous prototype "Dapper." Being of such dimensions, what he lacked for weight and size he made up by activity. No sooner had he arrived in camp than his trim dapper form was seen frisking about from side to side of the great boma, fidgeting, arranging, disturbing everything and everybody. He permitted no bales or packs to be intermingled, or to come into too close proximity to his own; he had a favourite mode of stacking his goods, which he would see carried out; he had a special eye for the best place for his tent, and no one else must trespass on that ground. One would imagine that walking ten or fifteen miles a day, he would leave such trivialities to his servants, but no, nothing could be right unless he had personally superintended it; in which work he was tireless and knew no fatigue.

Another not uncommon peculiarity pertained to Sheikh Hamed; as he was not a rich man, he laboured hard to make the most of every shukka and doti expended, and each fresh expenditure seemed to gnaw his very vitals: he was ready to weep, as he himself expressed it, at the high prices of Ugogo, and the extortionate demands of its sultans. For this reason, being the leader of the caravans, so far as he was able we were very sure not to be delayed in Ugogo, where food was so dear.

The day we arrived at Nyambwa will be remembered by Hamed as long as he lives, for the trouble and vexation which he suffered. His misfortunes arose from the fact that, being too busily engaged in fidgeting about the camp, he permitted his donkeys to stray into the matama fields of Pembera Pereh, the Sultan. For hours he and his servants sought for the stray donkeys, returning towards evening utterly unsuccessful, Hamed bewailing, as only an Oriental can do, when hard fate visits him with its inflictions, the loss of a hundred do dollars worth of Muscat donkeys. Sheikh Thani, older, more experienced, and wiser, suggested to him that he should notify the Sultan of his loss. Acting upon the sagacious advice, Hamed sent an embassy of two slaves, and the information they brought back was, that Pembera Pereh's servants had found the two donkeys eating the unripened matama, and that unless the Arab who owned them would pay nine doti of first-class cloths, he, Pembera Pereh, would surely keep them to remunerate him for the matama they had eaten. Hamed was in despair. Nine doti of first-class cloths, worth $25 in Unyanyembe, for half a chukka's worth of grain, was, as he thought, an absurd demand; but then if he did not pay it, what would become of the hundred dollars' worth of donkeys? He proceeded to the Sultan to show him the absurdity of the damage claim, and to endeavour to make him accept one chukka, which would be more than double the worth of what grain the donkeys had consumed. But the Sultan was sitting on pombe; he was drunk, which I believe to be his normal state—too drunk to attend to business, consequently his deputy, a renegade Mnyamwezi, gave ear to the business. With most of the Wagogo chiefs lives a Mnyamwezi, as their right-hand man, prime minister, counsellor, executioner, ready man at all things save the general good; a sort of harlequin Unyamwezi, who is such an intriguing, restless, unsatisfied person, that as soon as one hears that this kind of man forms one of and the chief of a Mgogo sultan's council, one feels very much tempted to do damage to his person. Most of the extortions practised upon the Arabs are suggested by these crafty renegades. Sheikh Hamed found that the Mnyamwezi was far more obdurate than the Sultan—nothing under nine doti first-class cloths would redeem the donkeys. The business that day remained unsettled, and the night following was, as one may imagine, a very sleepless one to Hamed. As it turned out, however, the loss of the donkeys, the after heavy fine, and the sleepless night, proved to be blessings in disguise; for, towards midnight, a robber Mgogo visited his camp, and while attempting to steal a bale of cloth, was detected in the act by the wide-awake and irritated Arab, and was made to vanish instantly with a bullet whistling in close proximity to his ear.

From each of the principals of the caravans, the Mnyamwezi had received as tribute for his drunken master fifteen doti, and from the other six caravans six doti each, altogether fifty-one doti, yet on the next morning when we took the road he was not a whit disposed to deduct a single cloth from the fine imposed on Hamed, and the unfortunate Sheikh was therefore obliged to liquidate the claim, or leave his donkeys behind.

After travelling through the corn-fields of Pembera Pereh we emerged upon a broad flat plain, as level as the still surface of a pond, whence the salt of the Wagogo is obtained. From Kanyenyi on the southern road, to beyond the confines of Uhumba and Ubanarama, this saline field extends, containing many large ponds of salt bitter water whose low banks are covered with an effervescence partaking of the nature of nitrate. Subsequently, two days afterwards, having ascended the elevated ridge which separates Ugogo from Uyanzi, I obtained a view of this immense saline plain, embracing over a hundred square miles. I may have been deceived, but I imagined I saw large expanses of greyish-blue water, which causes me to believe that this salina is but a corner of a great salt lake. The Wahumba, who are numerous, from Nyambwa to the Uyanzi border, informed my soldiers that there was a "Maji Kuba" away to the north.

Mizanza, our next camp after Nyambwa, is situated in a grove of palms, about thirteen miles from the latter place. Soon after arriving I had to bury myself under blankets, plagued with the same intermittent fever which first attacked me during the transit of Marenga Mkali. Feeling certain that one day's halt, which would enable me to take regular doses of the invaluable sulphate of quinine, would cure me, I requested Sheikh Thani to tell Hamed to halt on the morrow, as I should be utterly unable to continue thus long, under repeated attacks of a virulent disease which was fast reducing me into a mere frame of skin and bone. Hamed, in a hurry to arrive at Unyanyembe in order to dispose of his cloth before other caravans appeared in the market, replied at first that he would not, that he could not, stop for the Musungu. Upon Thani's reporting his answer to me, I requested him to inform Hamed that, as the Musungu did not wish to detain him, or any other caravan, it was his express wish that Hamed would march and leave him, as he was quite strong enough in guns to march through Ugogo alone. Whatever cause modified the Sheikh's resolution and his anxiety to depart, Hamed's horn signal for the march was not heard that night, and on the morrow he had not gone.

Early in the morning I commenced on my quinine doses; at 6 A.M. I took a second dose; before noon I had taken four more— altogether, fifty measured grains-the effect of which was manifest in the copious perspiration which drenched flannels, linen, and blankets. After noon I arose, devoutly thankful that the disease which had clung to me for the last fourteen days had at last succumbed to quinine.

On this day the lofty tent, and the American flag which ever flew from the centre pole, attracted the Sultan of Mizanza towards it, and was the cause of a visit with which he honoured me. As he was notorious among the Arabs for having assisted Manwa Sera in his war against Sheikh Sny bin Amer, high eulogies upon whom have been written by Burton, and subsequently by Speke, and as he was the second most powerful chief in Ugogo, of course he was quite a curiosity to me. As the tent-door was uplifted that he might enter, the ancient gentleman was so struck with astonishment at the lofty apex, and internal arrangements, that the greasy Barsati cloth which formed his sole and only protection against the chills of night and the heat of noon, in a fit of abstraction was permitted to fall down to his feet, exposing to the Musungu's unhallowed gaze the sad and aged wreck of what must once have been a towering form. His son, a youth of about fifteen, attentive to the infirmities of his father, hastened with filial duty to remind him of his condition, upon which, with an idiotic titter at the incident, he resumed his scanty apparel and sat down to wonder and gibber out his admiration at the tent and the strange things which formed the Musungu's personal baggage and furniture. After gazing in stupid wonder at the table, on which was placed some crockery and the few books I carried with me; at the slung hammock, which he believed was suspended by some magical contrivance; at the portmanteaus which contained my stock of clothes, he ejaculated, "Hi-le! the Musungu is a great sultan, who has come from his country to see Ugogo." He then noticed me, and was again wonder- struck at my pale complexion and straight hair, and the question now propounded was, "How on earth was I white when the sun had burned his people's skins into blackness?" Whereupon he was shown my cork topee, which he tried on his woolly head, much to his own and to our amusement. The guns were next shown to him; the wonderful repeating rifle of the Winchester Company, which was fired thirteen times in rapid succession to demonstrate its remarkable murderous powers. If he was astonished before he was a thousand times more so now, and expressed his belief that the Wagogo could not stand before the Musungu in battle, for wherever a Mgogo was seen such a gun would surely kill him. Then the other firearms were brought forth, each with its peculiar mechanism explained, until, in, a burst of enthusiasm at my riches and power, he said he would send me a sheep or goat, and that he would be my brother. I thanked him for the honour, and promised to accept whatever he was pleased to send me. At the instigation of Sheikh Thani, who acted as interpreter, who said that Wagogo chiefs must not depart with empty hands, I cut off a shukka of Kaniki and presented it to him, which, after being examined and measured, was refused upon the ground that, the Musungu being a great sultan should not demean himself so much as to give him only a shukka. This, after the twelve doti received as muhongo from the caravans, I thought, was rather sore; but as he was about to present me with a sheep or goat another shukka would not matter much.

Shortly after he departed, and true to his promise, I received a large, fine sheep, with a broad tail, heavy with fat; but with the words, :"That being now his brother, I must send him three doti of good cloth." As the price of a sheep is but a doti and a half, I refused the sheep and the fraternal honour, upon the ground that the gifts were all on one side; and that, as I had paid muhongo, and given him a doti of Kaniki as a present, I could not, afford to part with any more cloth without an adequate return.

During the afternoon one more of my donkeys died, and at night the hyaenas came in great numbers to feast upon the carcase. Ulimengo, the chasseur, and best shot of my Wangwana, stole out and succeeded in shooting two, which turned out to be some of the largest of their kind.. One of them measured six feet from the tip of the nose to the extremity of the tail, and three feet around the girth.

On the 4th. June we struck camp, and after travelling westward for about three miles, passing several ponds of salt water, we headed north by west, skirting the range of low hills which separates Ugogo from Uyanzi.

After a three hours' march, we halted for a short time at Little Mukondoku, to settle tribute with the brother of him who rules at Mukondoku Proper. Three doti satisfied the Sultan, whose district contains but two villages, mostly occupied by pastoral Wahumba and renegade Wahehe. The Wahumba live in plastered (cow-dung) cone huts, shaped like the tartar tents of Turkestan.

The Wahumba, so far as I have seen them, are a fine and well-formed race. The men are positively handsome, tall, with small heads, the posterior parts of which project considerably. One will look in vain for a thick lip or a flat nose amongst them; on the contrary, the mouth is exceedingly well cut, delicately small; the nose is that of the Greeks, and so universal was the peculiar feature, that I at once named them the Greeks of Africa. Their lower limbs have not the heaviness of the Wagogo and other tribes, but are long and shapely, clean as those of an antelope. Their necks are long and slender, on which their small heads are poised most gracefully. Athletes from their youth, shepherd bred, and intermarrying among themselves, thus keeping the race pure, any of them would form a fit subject for the sculptor who would wish to immortalize in marble an Antinous, a Hylas, a Daphnis, or an Apollo. The women are as beautiful as the men are handsome. They have clear ebon skins, not coal-black, but of an inky hue. Their ornaments consist of spiral rings of brass pendent from the ears, brass ring collars about the necks, and a spiral cincture of brass wire about their loins for the purpose of retaining their calf and goat skins, which are folded about their bodies, and, depending from the shoulder, shade one half of the bosom, and fall to the knees.

The Wahehe may be styled the Romans of Africa. Resuming our march, after a halt of an hour, in foul hours more we arrived at Mukondoku Proper. This extremity of Ugogo is most populous, The villages which surround the central tembe, where the Sultan Swaruru lives, amount to thirty-six. The people who flocked from these to see the wonderful men whose faces were white, who wore the most wonderful things on their persons, and possessed the most wonderful weapons; guns which "bum-bummed" as fast as you could count on your fingers, formed such a mob of howling savages, that I for an instant thought there was something besides mere curiosity which caused such commotion, and attracted such numbers to the roadside. Halting, I asked what was the matter, and what they wanted, and why they made such noise? One burly rascal, taking my words for a declaration of hostilities, promptly drew his bow, but as prompt as he had fixed his arrow my faithful Winchester with thirteen shots in the magazine was ready and at the shoulder, and but waited to see the arrow fly to pour the leaden messengers of death into the crowd. But the crowd vanished as quickly as they had come, leaving the burly Thersites, and two or three irresolute fellows of his tribe, standing within pistol range of my levelled rifle. Such a sudden dispersion of the mob which, but a moment before, was overwhelming in numbers, caused me to lower my rifle, and to indulge in a hearty laugh at the disgraceful flight of the men-destroyers. The Arabs, who were as much alarmed at their boisterous obtrusiveness, now came up to patch a truce, in which they succeeded to everybody's satisfaction. A few words of explanation, and the mob came back in greater numbers than before; and the Thersites who had been the cause of the momentary disturbance was obliged to retire abashed before the pressure of public opinion. A chief now came up, whom I afterwards learned was the second man to Swaruru, and lectured the people upon their treatment of the "White Stranger."

"Know ye not, Wagogo," shouted he, "that this Musungu is a sultan (mtemi—a most high title). He has not come to Ugogo like the Wakonongo (Arabs), to trade in ivory, but to see us, and give presents. Why do you molest him and his people? Let them pass in peace. If you wish to see him, draw near, but do not mock him. The first of you who creates a disturbance, let him beware; our great mtemi shall know how you treat his friends." This little bit of oratorical effort on the part of the chief was translated to me there and then by the old Sheik Thani; which having understood, I bade the Sheikh inform the chief that, after I had rested, I should like him to visit me in my tent.