1887.
Oct. 29.
Busindi. Another peculiarity of the Balessé is the condition of their clearings, and some of these are very extensive, quite a mile and a half in diameter, and the whole strewn with the relics, débris, and timber of the primeval forest. Indeed I cannot compare a Balessé clearing to anything better than a mighty abattis surrounding the principal village, and over this abattis the traveller has to find his way. As one steps out of the shadow of the forest, the path is at first, may be, along the trunk of a great tree for 100 feet, it then turns at right angles along a great branch a few feet; he takes a few paces on the soil, then finds himself in front of a massive prostrate tree-stem 3 feet in diameter or so; he climbs over that, and presently finds himself facing the out-spreading limbs of another giant, amongst which he must creep, and twist, and crawl to get footing on a branch, then from the branch to the trunk, he takes a half turn to the right, walks along the tree from which, increasing in thickness, he must soon climb on top of another that has fallen across and atop of it, when after taking a half-turn to the left, he must follow, ascending it until he is 20 feet above the ground. When he has got among the branches at this dizzy height, he needs judgment, and to be proof against nervousness. After tender, delicate balancing, he places his foot on a branch—at last descends cautiously along the steep slope until he is 6 feet from the ground from which he must jump on to another tapering branch, and follow that to another height of 20 feet, then along the monster tree, then down to the ground; and so on for hours, the hot, burning sun, and the close, steamy atmosphere of the clearing forcing the perspiration in streams from his body. I have narrowly escaped death three times during these frightful gymnastic exercises. One man died where he fell. Several men were frightfully bruised. Yet it is not so dangerous with the naked feet, but with boots in the early morning, before the dew is dried, or after a rain, or when the advance-guard has smeared the timber with a greasy clay, I have had six falls in an hour. The village stands in the 1887.
Oct. 29.
Busindi. centre. We have often congratulated ourselves on coming to a clearing at the near approach to camping-time, but it has frequently occupied us one hour and a half to reach the village. It is a most curious sight to see a caravan laden with heavy burdens walking over this wreck of a forest, and timbered clearing. Streams, swamps, watercourses, ditches are often twenty to twenty-five feet below a tapering slippery tree, which crosses them bridge-like. Some men are falling, some are tottering, one or two have already fallen, some are twenty feet above the ground, others are on the ground creeping under logs. Many are wandering among a maze of branches, thirty or more may be standing on one delicate and straight shaft, a few may be posted like sentries on a branch, perplexed which way to move. All this, however, is made much harder, and more dangerous, when, from a hundred points, the deadly arrows are flying from concealed natives, which, thank Heaven, were not common. We have been too cautious for that kind of work to happen often, though we have seldom been able to leave one of these awful clearings without having some man's foot skewered, or some one lamed.

On the 29th we marched to Bukiri or Myyulus, a distance of nine miles in six hours.

A few natives having been tormented and persecuted to submission to the Manyuema, greeted us with cries of "Bodo! Bodo! Ulenda! Ulenda!"; greetings which they accompanied with a flinging motion of the hand, as though they jerked "Away! away!"

The chief was styled Mwani. They wore much polished ironwork, rings, bells, and anklets, and appeared to be partial to many leglets made of calamus fibre, and armlets of the same material, after the manner of Karagwé and Uhha. They cultivate maize, beans, plantains, and bananas, tobacco, sweet potatoes, yams, brinjalls, melons, gourds. Their goats are fine, and of good size. Fowls are plentiful, but fresh eggs are rare.

Among some of these villages there is generally a dome hut of ample size, after the manner of Unyoro, with double porches.

1887.
Oct. 30.
Busindi. The following day we halted, during which the Manyuema guides took particular care to show our people that they should have no doubt of their contempt for them. They would not allow them to trade with the natives for fear some desirable article would be lost to themselves, they also vociferated at them loudly if they were seen proceeding to the clearing to cut plantains. As I told them, they did not advance in their favour in the least by abandoning the whites, and turning a deaf ear to our adjurations to be manly and faithful. A word, or even a defiant look, was visited with a sharp cut on the naked body with a rattan from slave boys of the six Manyuema guides with us. What awful oaths of vengeance were uttered for all these indignities they suffered!

On the 31st we came across the first village of Dwarfs, and, during the day, across several empty settlements belonging to them. We marched nine miles in five and a quarter hours, and camped in a dwarf's village in the woods.

Stealing continued steadily. On examining the pouches, there was one cartridge out of three pouches. The cartridges were lost, of course! Hilallah, a boy of sixteen, deserted back to Ipoto with my cartridge pouch, and thirty cartridges in it. A man who carried my satchel ran away with seventy-five Winchester cartridges.

The next day we entered the extensive clearing and large settlement of Mambungu's or Nebassé.

Khamis, the chief of the guides, left Ipoto on the 31st, and arrived at this place with seven men, according to agreement with Ismaili, my Manyuema brother.

The track which we followed has enabled us to increase our rate of progress per hour. Along the river bank, by dint of continued work, and devoting seven, eight, nine hours—sometimes ten hours—we could travel from 3 to 7 miles. We were now enabled to make 1½ to 1-3/4, and even 2 miles per hour; but the pace was still retarded by roots, stumps, climbers, 1887.
Nov. 1.
Mambungu's. llianes, convolvuli, skewers, and a multitude of streams, and green-scummed sinks. We could rarely proceed a clear hundred yards without being ordered to halt by the pioneers.

Each day towards evening the clouds gathered, the thunder reverberated with awful sounds through the echoing forest; lightning darted hither and thither, daily severing some tree-top, or splitting a mighty patriarch from crown to base, or blasting some stately and kingly tree; and the rain fell with a drowning plenty which chilled and depressed us greatly in our poor blooded and anæmic state. But during the march, Providence was gracious; the sun shone, and streamed in million beams of soft light through the woods, which brightened our feelings, and caused the aisles and corridors of the woods to be of Divine beauty, converted the graceful thin tree-shafts into marbly-grey pillars, and the dew and rain-drops into sparkling brilliants; cheered the invisible birds to pour out, with spirit, their varied repertory of songs; inspired parrot flocks to vent gleeful screams and whistlings; roused hosts of monkeys to exert their wildest antics; while now and then some deep, bass roar in far-away recesses indicated a family of soko or chimpanzees enjoying some savage sport.

The road from Mambungu's, eastward, was full of torments, fears, and anxieties. Never were such a series of clearings as those around Mambungu, and the neighbouring settlement of Njalis. The trees were of the largest size, and timber enough had been cut to build a navy; and these lay, in all imaginable confusion, tree upon tree, log above log, branches rising in hills above hills; and amongst all this wild ruin of woods grew in profusion upon profusion bananas, plantains, vines, parasites; ivy-like plants, palms, calamus, convolvuli, etc., through which the poor column had to burrow, struggle, and sweat, while creeping, crawling, and climbing, in, through, and over obstacles and entanglements that baffle description.

On the 4th November we were 13-3/4 miles from 1887.
Nov. 4.
Ndugubisha. Mambungu's in the settlement of Ndugubisha, having passed, in the interval, through five deserted forest villages of pigmies.On this day I came near smiling—for I fancied I observed the dawn of happier days foretold by Uledi. Each member of the caravan received one ear of corn, and 15 plantains as rations.

Fifteen plantains and one ear of corn make a royal ration compared to two ears of corn, or a handful of berries, or a dozen fungus. It was not calculated, however, to make men too cheerful, though our people were naturally light-hearted and gay.

"But never mind, my boys," I said, as I doled the spare diet to the hungry creatures; "the morning is breaking; a week more, and then you shall see the end of your troubles."

Verbal reply was not given to me; only a wan smile lightened the famine-sharpened features. Our officers had borne these privations with the spirit ascribed by Cæsar to Antony, and as well as though they were to the manner born. They fed on the flat wood beans of the forest, on the acid wild fruit and strange fungus, with the smiling content of Sybarites at a feast. Yet one of them paid £1,000 for this poor privilege, and came near being thought too dainty for rough African life. They had been a living example to our dark followers, many of whom had probably been encouraged to strive for existence by the bright, hopeful looks our officers wore under our many unhappy afflictions.

On the following day we crossed the watershed between the Ihuru and Ituri rivers, and we now plunged into cool streams flowing to leftward, or towards the Ihuru. Hills rose to the right and left in wooded and ridgy mounts, and after a march of nine and three-quarter miles, we halted for the night at West Indékaru, at the base of a hill whose top rose 600 feet above the village. Another short march brought us to a village perched half-way up a tall mount, which may be designated as East Indékaru, and by aneroid we were 4,097 feet above the ocean. From this village we enjoyed a first view of our surroundings. Instead of 1887.
Nov. 5.
Indékaru. crawling like mighty bipeds in the twilight, 30 fathoms below the level of the white light of the day, compelled to recognize our littleness, by comparison with the giant columns and tall pillar-like shafts that rose by millions around us, we now stood on the crest of a cleared mount, to look upon the leafy world below us. One almost felt as if walking over the rolling plain of leafage was possible, so compact and unbroken was the expanse, extending to a lovely pale blueness as the eyesight followed it to the furthest limits of distinctness—away, far away to an unknown distance the forest tops spread round about a variegated green of plushy texture, broad red patches of tree flowering, and rich russety circles of leaves, not unfrequent. How one envied the smooth, easy flight of the kites and white-collared eagles, sailing gracefully without let or hindrance through the calm atmosphere! Ah! that we had the wings of kites, that we might fly and be at rest from these incorrigibly wicked Manyuema! Whose wish was that? Indeed, I think we all of us shared it, more or less.

On the 7th, while we halted on the mount, the Manyuema monopolizing the village, and our men in the bush, unworthy to be near their nobility, there was a little storm between Saat Tato (Three o'clock), the hunter, and Khamis, the chief of the Manyuema guides. It threatened, from the sound of words, to explode hurtfully at one time. Khamis slapped him in the face. Both were tall men, but Saat Tato was two inches taller, a good soldier, who had seen service in Madagascar and with Sultan Barghash as a sergeant, but who, from his habits of getting drunk by the third hour of each day, was nicknamed "Three o'clock," and dismissed. He was an excellent man, faithful, strong, obedient, and an unerring shot. Given the benefits of twenty-five pounds of food, Saat Tato, at a hint, would have smilingly taken hold of Khamis, and snapped his vertebrae across his knee with the ease that he would have broken a spear staff. I observed Saat Tato closely, for it must be remembered that it had become fully impressed on my mind that my men were quite too broken-spirited. Saat 1887.
Nov. 7.
Indékaru. Tato looked at him a second severely; then, lifting his forefinger, said to Khamis, "It is well, but I should like to see you repeat that blow a little time hence, after I have a little food in me, and filled this stomach of mine. Strike me again, do; I can bear it."

Advancing, and touching Khamis on the shoulder, I said, "Khamis, do not do that again. I do not allow even my officers to strike my men like that."

The ill-humour was increasing, and, little as the Manyuema imagined, they were assisting me to restore the spirit of the Zanzibaris by their cruelty. There were signs that the Christians would prevail after all. The mutual affection expressed between the Moslem co-religionists at the altar of which our men were ready to sacrifice our lives and liberties and their own freedom, had been cooled by the cruelty, perverseness, and niggardliness of the Manyuema. All we had to do was to watch it, bear patiently, and be ready.

To our great comfort Khamis confessed that West Indékaru was the utmost limit of his master Ismaili's territory.

We, however, were not to part from him until we reached Ibwiri.

We marched eleven miles on the 8th of November through a much more open forest, and we could see further into the interior. The road was better, so much so that our rate of marching increased to two miles per hour. The gritty and loamy soil had absorbed the rain, and walking became pleasant. The llianes were not so riotously abundant, only a strong creeper now and then requiring severance. At several places there were granite outcroppings of a colossal size, which were a novelty and added a kind of romantic and picturesque interest to the woods, darkly suggestive of gitanos, bandits, or pigmies.

A march of nine and a half miles on the 9th of November took us to a Pigmies' camp. Until noon a mist had hung over the land. Towards the latter part of the tramp we passed through several lately deserted villages of the dwarfs, and across eight streams. 1887.
Nov. 9.
Indékaru. Khamis, the guide, and his followers, and about half-a-dozen of the pioneers proceeded to Ibwiri, which was only one and a half mile distant, and on the next day we joined them. This was one of the richest and finest clearings we had seen since leaving Yambuya, though had the Expedition been despatched eight months earlier, we should have found scores in the same prosperous condition. Here was a clearing three miles in diameter abounding in native produce, and hitherto unvisited by the Manyuema. Almost every plantain stalk bore an enormous branch of fruit, with from fifty to one hundred and forty plantains attached. Some specimens of this fruit were twenty-two inches long, two and a half inches in diameter, and nearly eight inches round, large enough to furnish Saat Tato the hunter, with his long desired full meal. There was an odour of ripe fruit pervading the air, and as we climbed over the logs and felt our way gingerly along the prostrate timber, I was often asked by the delighted people to note the bunches of mellow fruit hanging temptingly before their eyes.

Before reaching the village Murabo, a Zanzibari headman, whispered to me that there were five villages in Ibwiri, and that each hut in every village was more than a fourth full of Indian corn, but that Khamis and his Manyuema had been storing corn in their own huts, which, according to right of preemption, they had reserved for themselves.

On entering the street of the village, Khamis met me with the usual complaints about the wickedness of the "vile Zanzibaris." Looking down on the ground I saw many a trail of corn which went to corroborate Murabo's story, and as Khamis proposed that the Expedition should occupy the western half of the village, and he and his fifteen Manyuema would occupy the eastern half, I ventured to demur to the proposition on the ground that as we had departed out of his master's territory we claimed all the land to the eastward, and would in future dispense with any suggestion as to what we should do, and that furthermore not a grain of corn, nor plantain, banana, or any other native product in the 1887.
Nov. 10.
Ibwiri. land would leave the country without my permission. He was told, no people on earth could have borne so uncomplainingly such shames, affronts, and insults as had been put upon the Zanzibaris, and that in future they should be permitted to resent all such injuries as they best knew how. Khamis assented submissively to all this.

The first thing after storing goods, and distributing the men to their quarters, was to give fifty ears of corn per man, and to arrange with the natives as to our future conduct towards one another.

Within an hour it was agreed that the western half of the Ibwiri clearing should be granted to us for foraging; that the eastern half, from a certain stream, should be the reserve of the natives. Khamis, the Manyuema, was also induced to enter into the pact. In return for a packet of brass rods, Boryo, the principal chief of the Balessé of the district, presented us with five fowls and a goat.

This was a great day. Since August 31st not one follower of the Expedition had enjoyed a full meal, but now bananas, plantains ripe and green, potatoes, herbs, yams, beans, sugar-cane, corn, melons in such quantities were given them that were they so many elephants they could not have exhausted the stock provided for them in less than ten days. They could gratify to the full the appetite so long stinted and starved.

As we were compelled to wait for Mr. Jephson and some sixty Zanzibaris—forty of the relief party, boat's crew, and convalescents from Ipoto—the good effect of this abundance would be visible in a few clays. It was also one of those settlements we had been anxiously searching for as a recuperating station. On this date the men were hideous to look upon, because of their gaunt nakedness. They were naked, for they had stripped themselves to obtain food from the slaves of the Manyuema at Ugarrowwa's and Ipoto; of flesh they had none, for they had been reduced to bones by seventy-three days of famine and thirteen days of absolute want; of strength they had but little, and they were ill-favoured in every respect; their native colour of oiled bronze had become 1887.
Nov. 10.
Ibwiri. a mixture of grimy black and wood ashes; their rolling eyes betrayed signs of disease, impure blood, and indurated livers; that beautiful contour of body, and graceful and delicate outlines of muscles—alas, alas!—were all gone. They more befitted a charnel-house than a camp of men bound to continually wear fighting accoutrements.

Khamis, the Manyuema guide, offered the next morning to proceed east to search out the road from Ibwiri, for, as he informed me, Boryo, the chief, had told him of a grass-land being not many days off. He thought that with a few of Boryo's natives, and thirty of our riflemen, he could discover something of interest. Calling Boryo to me, he confirmed, as well as we could understand him, that from a place called Mandé, which he said was only two days' good marching—say forty miles—the grass-land could be seen; that herds of cattle came in such numbers to the Ituri river to drink that the river "swelled up." All this chimed with my eager desire to know how far we were from the open country, and as Boryo said he was willing to furnish guides, I called for volunteers. Twenty-eight men came forward, to my surprise, as willing and as eager for new adventures as though they had been revelling in plenty for the last few months. Khamis and his party departed shortly after.

Despite strict prohibition to touch anything on the native reservation of Ibwiri, one of our raiders paid it a visit, and captured nineteen fowls, two of which he had already despatched, the remaining seventeen he had decapitated, but our detectives pounced upon him and his stock, as he and his chum were debating what they should do with the feathers. The flesh and bones did not promise to be any trouble to them. Close by them two men had despatched an entire goat, excepting the head! These facts serve to illustrate the boundless capacity of Zanzibari stomachs.

The natives of Ibwiri had behaved most handsomely, and personally I felt a sense of shame at the ingratitude of my followers. The chief and his family were living with us, and exchanged their greetings of "Bodo, Bodo, 1887.
Nov. 10.
Ibwiri. ulenda, ulenda," half-a-dozen times a day. Yet our men had undergone such extremes of wretchedness during the last two and a half months that we might have well anticipated some excesses would be committed upon the first opportunity. No other body of men in the wide world that I am acquainted with could have borne such a period of hunger so meekly, so resignedly. Not a grain or a bit of human food discoverable anywhere, their comrades dying at every camp, or falling dead along the track, others less patient plunging into the depths of the wilderness maddened by hunger, leaving them to fare as they might under the burdens of war-munitions, and baggage. Goaded by the protracted hunger, and fierce despair, and loss of trust in their officers, they might have seized their Remingtons and, by one volley, have slain their white chiefs, and fed on them, and shaken off power, and, in a moment, the clutch of authority which, so far as they knew, was only dragging them down to certain doom.

While I pitied the natives who had lost their property when they least deserved it, I could not remove from my memory that extended fast in the area of desolation and forest wilderness stretching between the Basopo Rapids and Ibwiri, on the edge of which we were even now located, or their patient obedience—thefts and small practices notwithstanding, their unfaltering fidelity, their kindness to us while we were starving, in bestowing upon us the choicest and finest of the wild fruit they had discovered, and their altogether courageous bearing and noble hopefulness during the terrible days of adversity; all these virtues must needs extenuate their offences, and it was best to await fulness and reflection to assist us in reclaiming them into tractableness and good order. Every mile or two almost of that hungry forest solitude between the Ihuru and Ituri confluence and Ipoto had been marked by the dead bodies of their comrades; there they lay fast mildewing and rotting in the silent gloom, and, but for the fidelity of the survivors, none of those capable of giving intelligent testimony of the stern trials endured during September, October, and 1887.
Nov. 10.
Ibwiri. the half of November, would have lived to relate the sad and sorrowful details.

The more experience and insight I obtain into human nature, the more convinced do I become that the greater portion of a man is purely animal. Fully and regularly fed, he is a being capable of being coaxed or coerced to exertion of any kind, love and fear sway him easily, he is not averse to labour however severe; but when starved it is well to keep in mind the motto "Cave Canem," for a starving lion over a raw morsel of beef is not so ferocious or so ready to take offence. Rigid discipline, daily burdens, and endless marching into regions of which they were perfectly ignorant, never seemed to gall our men much when their stomachs were pampered, and abundant provender for their digestive organs were provided; but even hanging unto death was only a temporary damper to their inclination to excessive mischief when pinched with hunger. The aborigines also of Ibwiri surrounded by plenty are mild and meek enough through pure sleekness, but the dwarfish nomads of the forest are, I am told, as fierce as beasts of prey, and fight till their quivers are empty.

I received word on the 12th that Khamis, the Manyuema who was supposed to have gone for my gratification to explore the country ahead, and to make friends with the aid of the natives, had, owing to perverseness, been unable to accomplish his mission; that he was greatly disappointed, and that he had been attacked by the natives of East Ibwiri and had lost two men. I sent word to him to return.

The fleas of Ibwiri became so intolerable that in order to obtain rest, I had to set my tent in the open street.

On the 13th of November, while taking an inspection of the village camp, and examining into the condition of the men, I was amazed at the busy scene of eating I beheld. Almost every man was engaged in pounding corn, reducing dried bananas into flour, or grinding mouthfuls of food with their fine teeth, making amends for the compulsory fast of September, October and November.

1887.
Nov. 14.
Ibwiri. Khamis returned on the 14th with a large flock of goats obtained from somewhere. He was gracious enough to allow us sixteen head. This inclined us to suspect that the real object of his design was not to explore but to extend the conquests of his master, Ismaili, farther east through our assistance, and to reduce the natives of Ibwiri into the same state of poverty as the neighbourhood of Ipoto, for instance. But though Khamis possessed force sufficient to have accomplished even this last, the silly fellow's greed caused him to behave with such reckless disregard of the poisoned shafts of the natives that he lost three of his men. It seems that as soon as a flock of goats was sighted, Khamis forgot his design to explore, urged his Manyuema to their capture, and retained our people by him. Our men by these tactics returned uninjured without having been engaged in this disgraceful action. Then, as Khamis was returning to our village, mourning the loss of three of his most active comrades, he suddenly met Boryo, the Chief of East Ibwiri, and without a word made him a prisoner. Before reporting to me, Khamis, on arrival, ordered his men to strangle the chief in revenge for the death of his men. Happening to hear of it, I sent a guard to take him by force out of Khamis' hands, and placed him in a hut out of harm's way, and bade Boryo rest quiet until Khamis had departed.

We luxuriated during our days of rest. There had been discovered such an abundance of food that we might safely have rested six months without fear of starving. We enjoyed ripe plantains made into puddings with goats' milk; fritters, patties and bread, sweet potatoes, manioc, yams, herbs, fowls and goat meat without stint. On the evening of this day the menu for dinner was—

1887.
Nov. 14.
Ibwiri. Already I noted a change in the appearance of ourselves and followers. There was certainly more noise, and once or twice I heard an attempt at singing, but as there was a well recognised flaw in the voice, it was postponed to another day.

At 3 P.M. of the 16th Mr. Jephson appeared, having performed his mission of relief most brilliantly. As will be seen by Mr. Jephson's letter descriptive of his success, he had been able to proceed to the relief of Captain Nelson, and to return with him to Ipoto within seven days, after a journey of about a hundred miles. Judging from Captain Nelson's letter, he seemed to have been delivered out of his terrible position to fall into a similar desperate strait in the midst of the plenty of Ipoto.

The next day Khamis and his Manyuema returned homeward without taking leave. I despatched a letter to the officers at Ipoto, sent Khamis' ivory and a present of cloth with it to Indékaru, whence the Manyuema might be able to obtain assistance from their own natives. I was never so dissatisfied with myself as when I was compelled to treat these men thus so kindly, and to allow them to depart without even the small satisfaction of expressing my private opinion of Manyuema in general and of the gang at Ipoto in particular. At all points I was worsted; they compelled a generous treatment from me, and finally trapped me into the obligation of being the carrier of their stolen ivory.

Yet I felt grateful to them somewhat that they had not taken greater advantage of my position. With Captain Nelson and Dr. Parke and about thirty men in their power, they might have compelled a thousand concessions from me, which happily they did not. I hoped that after a season of forbearance divine justice would see fit to place me in more independent circumstances. When the Doctor and Nelson and their sick men were recovered and in my camp, and the 116 loads and boat left at Ipoto been conveyed away, then, and not till then, would I be able to cast up accounts, and demand a peremptory and final settlement. The charges were written plainly and fairly, as a memorandum.

1887.
Nov. 17.
Ibwiri.

Messrs. Kilonga Longa and Co., Ipoto.

To Mr. Stanley, officers and men of the E. P. R. Expedition,

November 17th, 1887.

During the afternoon of the 17th we experienced once again the evils attending our connection with the Manyuema. All Ibwiri and neighbouring districts were in arms against us. The first declaration of their hostilities took place when a man named Simba proceeded to the stream close to the camp to draw water, and received an arrow in the abdomen. Realizing from our anxious faces the fatal nature of the wound, he cried out his "Buryani brothers!" and soon after, being taken into his hut, loaded a Remington rifle near him, and made a ghastly wreck of features that were once jovial, and not uncomely.

The reflections of the Zanzibaris on the suicide were curious, and best expressed by Sali, the tent boy.

"Think of it, Simba! a poor devil owning nothing in the world, without anything or anybody dear to him, neither name, place, property, or honour, to commit 1887.
Nov. 17.
Ibwiri. suicide! Were he a rich Arab now, a merchant Hindu, a captain of soldiers, a governor of a district, or a white man who had suffered misfortune, or had been the victim of dishonour or shame, yea, I could understand the spirit of the suicide; but this Simba, who was no better than a slave, an outcast of Unyanyembé, without friends on the face of the earth, save the few poor things in his own mess in this camp, to go and kill himself like a man of wealth! Faugh! pitch him into the wilderness, and let him rot! What right has he to the honour of a shroud and a burial?" This was the sentiment of the men who were once his comrades—though not so forcibly expressed as was done by little Sali in his fierce indignation at the man's presumption.

Early on this morning Lieutenant Stairs and thirty-six rifles were despatched to make a reconnaissance eastward under the guidance of Boryo, and a young Manyuema volunteer, as we had yet a few days to wait for the arrival of several convalescents who, wearied of the cruelties practised at Ipoto on them, preferred death on the road to the horrible servitude of the Manyuema slaves.

On the 19th Uledi, the coxswain of the Advance with his boat's crew, arrived, reporting that there were fifteen convalescents on the way. By night they were in the camp.

On the 21st the reconnoitering party under Lieutenant Stairs returned, Boryo still accompanying them; nothing new about the grass land had been obtained, but they reported a tolerably good path leading steadily eastward, which was as comforting news as we could expect.

On the 23rd, the last day of our stay at Ibwiri, there was a muster and reorganization:—

1887.
Nov. 23.
Ibwiri. Inclusive of Captain Nelson and Dr. Parke there were twenty-eight at Ipoto; we had left to recuperate at Ugarrowwa's fifty-six. Some from Nelson's starvation camp under Umari, the headman, probably ten, might return; so that we reckoned the number of the advance column to be 268 still living out of 389 men who had departed from Yambuya 139 days previously, and put down our loss at 111. We were greatly mistaken, however, for by this date many of the sick at Ugarrowwa's had died, and the condition of the sick at Ipoto was deplorable.

Since our arrival at Ibwiri the majority of our followers had gained weight of body at the rate of a pound per day. Some were positively huge in girth; their eyes had become lustrous, and their skins glossy like oiled bronze. For the last three nights they had ventured upon songs; they hummed their tunes as they pounded their corn; they sang as they gazed at the moon at night after their evening meal. Frequently a hearty laugh had been heard. In the afternoon of this day a sparring match took place between two young fellows, and a good deal of severe thumping was exchanged; they were always "spinning yarns" to interested listeners. Life had come back by leaps and bounds. Brooding over skeletons and death, and musing on distant friends in their far-away island, had been abandoned for hopeful chat over the future, about the not far distant grass land with its rolling savannahs, and green champaigns, abounding in fat cattle; and they dwelt unctuously on full udders and massive humps, and heavy tails of sheep, and granaries of millet and sesame, pots of zogga, pombe, or some other delectable stimulant, and the Lake Haven, where the white man's steamers were at anchor, appeared distinctly in their visions.

They all now desired the march, for the halt had been quite sufficient. There were twenty perhaps to whom another fortnight's rest was necessary, but they all appeared to me to have begun recovery, and, provided food was abundant, their marching without loads would not be hurtful.

1887.
Nov. 24.
Ibwiri. At dawn of the bright and sunny day, 24th of November, the Soudanese trumpeter blew the signal with such cheery strains that found a ready response from every man. The men shouted their "Ready, aye ready, Master!" in a manner that more reminded me of former expeditions, than of any day we had known on this. There was no need of the officers becoming exasperated at delays of laggards and the unwilling; there was not a malingerer in the camp. Every face was lit up with hopefulness. A prospective abundance of good cheer invited them on. For two days ahead, the path was known by those of the reconnaissance, and the members of the party had, like Caleb and Joshua, expatiated upon the immense and pendent clusters of plantains effusing delicious odours of ripeness, and upon the garden plots of potatoes, and waving fields of maize, &c. Therefore, for once, we were relieved from the anxiety as to who should take this load, or that box; there was no searching about for the carriers, no expostulations nor threats, but the men literally leaped to the goods pile, fought for the loads, and laughed with joy; and the officers faces wore grateful smiles, and expressed perfect contentment with events.

We filed out of the village, a column of the happiest fellows alive. The accursed Manyuema were behind us, and in our front rose in our imaginations vivid pictures of pastoral lands, and a great lake on whose shores we were to be greeted by a grateful Pasha, and a no less grateful army of men.

In forty-five minutes we arrived at Boryo's village (the chief had been released the day before), a long, orderly arrangement of a street 33 feet wide, flanked by four low blocks of buildings 400 yards in length. According to the doors we judged that fifty-two families had formed Boryo's particular community. The chief's house was recognized by an immense slab of wood four feet wide and six feet long, and two inches thick; its doorway being cut out of this in a diamond figure.

The height of the broad eaves was 10 feet above the ground, and the houses were 10 feet in width. The 1887.
Nov. 24.
Ibwiri. eaves projected 30 inches in front, and 2 feet over the back walls. Outside of the village extended, over level and high ground, the fields, gardens, and plantations, banked all round by the untouched forest, which looked dark, ominous, and unwelcome. Altogether Boryo's village was the neatest and most comfortable we had seen throughout the valley of the Aruwimi. One hundred yards from the western end ran a perennial and clear stream, which abounded with fish of the silurus kind.

After a short halt we resumed the journey, and entered the forest. Four miles beyond Boryo's we passed over a swamp, which was very favourable to fine growths of the Raphia palm, and soon after lunched. In the afternoon I undertook, as an experiment, to count my paces for an hour, and to measure a space of 200 yards, to find the number of inches to a pace, and found that the average rate in a fair track through the forest was 4800 paces of 26 inches long = 3470 yards per hour. At 3 o'clock we camped in an extensive pigmies' village. The site commanded four several roads, leading to villages. There is no doubt it was a favourite spot, for the village common was well tamped and adapted for sport, gossip, and meetings. The bush around the camp was quite undisturbed.

On the 25th, after 8¼ miles march, we reached Indémwani. Our track led along the water-parting between the Ituri and Ihuru rivers. The village was of oval shape, similar in architecture to Boryo's. A wealth of plantains surrounded it, and Indian corn, tobacco, beans, and tomatoes were plentiful. In passing through the clearing, over a fearful confusion of logs, one of our men toppled over, and fell and broke his neck.

From Indémwani we moved on the 26th to West Indenduru, through a most humid land. Streams were crossed at every mile; moss, wet and dripping, clothed stems from base to top. Even shrubs and vines were covered with it.

A peculiarity of this day's march was a broad highway, cut and cleared for 3 miles through the undergrowth, which was terminated by a large village of the pigmies, 1887.
Nov. 26.
Indenduru. but recently vacated. There were ninety-two huts, which we may take to represent ninety-two families, or thereabouts. There was one hut more pretentious than the others, which possibly was the chief's house. We had seen now about twenty villages of the forest pigmies, but as yet we had only viewed the pretty little woman at Ugarrowwa—the miniature Hebé.

Lieutenant Stairs, during his reconnaissance from Ibwiri, had reached West Indenduru, and had left the village standing; but because he had occupied it, the natives had set fire to it after his departure. We observed also that the Balessé seldom ate of the produce of a field twice, and that a plantain grove, after bearing fruit once, is abandoned for another; and a corn plot, after being tilled, sown, and harvested, is left to revert to wilderness. They appear to be continually planting bananas and preparing ground for corn, which accounted for the immense clearings we had passed, and for the thousands of trees that littered the ground in one great ruin. For the bananas or plantains, they simply cut down the underwood and plant the young bulbs in a shallow hole, with sufficient earth to keep it upright. They then cut the forest down, and let the trees lie where they fall. In six months the Musa bulbs have thriven wonderfully under shade and among roots and débris, and grown to 8 feet in height; within a year they have borne fruit. The Indian corn or maize requires sunshine. The trees are cut down well above the buttress, by building scaffolds 10, 15, or even 20 feet high. The logs are cut up, and either split for slabs or lining for the inner and outer walls of their huts, or scooped out for troughs for the manufacture of plantain wine. The branches are piled around the plot to rot; they do not burn them, because that would impoverish the soil, and as the surface is rich in humus, it would burn down to the clay.

Considering what great labour is involved in the clearing of a portion of primeval forest, we were tempted to regard the Balessé as very foolish in burning their villages for such a trivial cause as one night's occupation of them by strangers; but it is an instance of the 1887.
Nov. 26.
Indenduru. obstinate sullenness of these people. Boryo's village, for instance, could scarcely be constructed under a twelvemonth. The population of the largest village we saw could not exceed 600 souls; but while we wonder at their prejudices, we must award credit to them for great industry and unlimited patience to produce such splendid results as we observed.

East Indenduru was also an exceedingly well-built village, and extremely clean, though the houses within swarmed with vermin. The street, however, was too narrow for the height of the buildings, and a fire occurring in the night might easily have consumed half the inhabitants. For the huts were higher than at Boryo's, and as the buildings were a few hundred yards in length, and had only one principal exit at the eastern end, the danger of a fire was such that we did not occupy it without having taken many precautions to avoid a possible disaster in what appeared to be a perfect trap.

Field-beans, of a dark variety, were gathered by the bushel, and our men revelled in the juice of the sugar-cane.

We were now in S. Lat. 1° 22½' and south of the watershed, all streams flowing towards the Ituri.

On the 28th we halted in East Indenduru, and sent three separate reconnoitering parties to obtain a knowledge of the general direction of the routes leading out of the settlement. We had tested the task of forming our own track through the forest long enough, and having discovered one which had been of such service to us, we were loth to revert to the tedious labour of travelling through jungles and undergrowth again.

Jephson's party proceeded S.S.E., and finally S., and at noon turned back to report. This road would not do for us. Rashid's party took one leading E.N.E., and finally north, through two small villages, one path returning southerly, another going north-easterly. Continuing his explorations along the latter, he came to a native camp. There was a slight skirmish; the natives fled, and he obtained a prize of nine fat goats, only five of which they brought to camp. This road would not suit us either.

1887.
Nov. 28.
Indenduru. A third search party was led by a famous scout, who discovered one path heading easterly. We resolved to adopt this.

On the 29th we left Indenduru and journeyed to Indepessu by noon, and in the afternoon sheered by a northerly path to the settlement of the Baburu, having accomplished a distance of ten miles in five hours, which was exceedingly fair walking.

On the next morning, after a march of an hour and a half along a tolerably good path, we emerged in front of an extensive clearing of about 240 acres. The trees were but recently cut. This marked the advent of a powerful tribe, or a late removal to new ground of old settlers of some numerical force, resolved upon securing many creature comforts. A captive woman of the Waburu led the way through the middle of this wide abattis, the very sight of which was appalling. An hour later we had crossed this, not without bruised shins and much trembling, and the path then led up an easy ascent up a prolonged span of a hill. The hollows on either side of it showed prodigious groves of plantains and many gardens, ill-kept, devoted to herbs and gourds. Within thirty minutes from the summit of the ascent we had reached an altitude that promised to give us shortly a more extended view than any we had been lately accustomed to, and we pressed gladly upwards, and soon entered a series of villages that followed the slope. A village of these parts always gave us a highway well trodden, from forty to sixty feet wide; in a series of this type of villages we should soon be able to pace a mile. We had passed through several fine separate long blocks of low structures, when the foremost of the advance guard was seen running swiftly down to meet me. He asked me to look towards the sunrise, and, turning my eyes in that direction, they were met by the gratifying sight of a fairly varied scene of pasture-land and forest, of level champaigns and grassy slopes of valleys and hills, rocky knolls and softly rounded eminences, a veritable "land of hills and valleys, that drinketh the rain of heaven." That the open country was well watered was 1887.
Nov. 30.
Bakwuru. indicated by the many irregular lines of woods which marked the courses of the streams, and by the clumps of trees, whose crowns just rose above their sloping banks.

The great forest in which we had been so long buried, and whose limits were in view, appeared to continue intact and unbroken to the N.E., but to the E. of it was an altogether different region of grassy meads and plains and hills, freely sprinkled with groves, clusters, and thin lines of trees up to certain ranges of hills that bounded the vision, and at whose base I knew must be the goal whither we had for months desired to reach.