On the 7th August, 1857, the Expedition left Zungomero. We were martyred by miasma; my companion and I were so feeble, that we could scarcely sit our asses, and weakness had almost deprived us of the sense of hearing. It was a day of severe toil. We loaded with difficulty, for the slaves and porters did not assemble till past 8 A.M., and instead of applying for their loads to Said bin Salim, every man ran off with the lightest burden or the easiest ass.

From Central Zungomero to the nearest ascent of the Usagara Mountains is a march of five hours. The route, emerging from the cultivated districts, leaves to the right the Wigo Hills, so called, probably, from the fishing weirs in the stagnant waters below, and in the Mgeta River, which flows through the plain. On the left, and distant four or five miles, is a straggling line of low cones: at the foot of one, somewhat larger than its neighbours, rises the thermal spring known to the people as the Maji ya W’heta, the Geyser, jetting-water, or fontaine qui bouille. Its position is a gentle slope between the hill-base and a dwarf Savannah which is surrounded by high walls of jungly forest, and the water-shed is from south to north. The hot water boils and bubbles out of a white sand, here and there stained and encrusted with oxide of iron. Upon the surface lie caked and scaly sheets of calcareous tufa, expressed by the spring, and around it are erratic boulders blackened probably by the thermal fumes. The earth is dark, sometimes sandy, and sprinkled over with fragments of quartzite and sandstone; in other places a screen of brab-tree backs a bold expanse of ground, treacherous, boggy, and unstable as water. The area is about 200 feet in diameter, and the centre of ebullition is unapproachable, owing to the heat and the instability of the soil. According to the guides, it is subject to occasional eruptions, when the water bursts out with violence, and fragments of lime are flung high in the air. Animals are said to refuse it, and tales are told of wild beasts having been bogged in the seething mire.

With the Mgeta thrown on the left hand, we passed by a path almost invisible, through dense grass and trees, and presently we entered the luxuriant cultivation surrounding the westernmost villages of K’hutu. As the land beyond this point, for three long marches, lies barren, the slaves and porters had comfortably housed themselves. The prospect of another night in the plains made me desperate; I dislodged them, and persuaded them to advance once more. The settlements were of the most miserable description; many were composed of a few sticks lashed together at the top, and loosely covered with a few armfuls of holcus-cane. Here we sighted the cocoa-tree for the last time. The rats were busy in the fields, and the plundered peasants were digging them out for food. At almost every corner of the deeply-pitted path stood a mtego, or trap for small birds, a cage of rush or split bamboo planted in the ground near some corn, where a boy lies waiting till the prey nibbles at the bait, and then creeping up, bars with his hand the little doorway left in one of the sides. Beyond the villages the path forded six times the sandy bed of the Mgeta, whose steep and slippery banks supported dense screens of shrub and grass. Beyond the sixth passage, the road falls into the gravelly river-shoals, with the stream flowing in the other half of the course, under well-wooded masses of primitive hill. After again thrice fording the cold and muddy water, which even in the dry season is here ankle, there foot-deep, the road passed some clearings where porcupines and the African red squirrel, a sturdy little animal, with a long thick fur of dark brown, shot with green on the back, and a bright red waistcoat, muzzle, and points, were observed. About noon we diverged a few yards from the Mgeta, and ascended the incline of the first gradient in Usagara, rising about 300 feet from the plain below. This, the frontier of the second region, or ghauts, and the debris encumbering the lowest escarpment, is called Mzizi Mdogo, or the “Little Tamarind,” to distinguish it from the “Great Tamarind” station which lies beyond. There was no vestige of building upon the spot—no sight nor sound of man—the blood-feud and the infernal slave-trade had made a howling desert of the land. We found, however, a tattered kraal erected by the last passing caravan, and, spent with fatigue, we threw ourselves on the short grass to rest. The porters and the asses did not appear till the evening, when it became apparent that two of the latter had been lost by their drivers, Hayja and Khamisi, sons of Ramji, who preferred sitting in the shade, and chatting with passing caravans, to the sore task of doing their duty. The animals were recovered on the morrow, by sundry parties sent in search. During the fordings of the Mgeta, however, they had not been unpacked; our salt and sugar, therefore, had melted away; soap, cigars, mustard, and arsenical paste, were in pulp; the tea was spoiled, the compressed vegetables presently became musty, and the gunpowder in a fire-proof copper magazine was caked like stale bread.

There was a wondrous change of climate at Mzizi Mdogo; strength and health returned as if by magic; even the Goanese shook off the obstinate bilious remittents of Zungomero. Truly delicious was the escape from the nebulous skies, the fog-driving gusts, the pelting rain, the clammy mists veiling a gross growth of fetor, the damp raw cold, rising as it were from the earth, and the alternations of fiery and oppressive heat; in fact, from the cruel climate of the river-valley, to the pure sweet mountain-air, alternately soft and balmy, cool and reviving, and to the aspect of clear blue skies, which lent their tints to highland ridges well wooded with various greens. Dull mangrove, dismal jungle, and monotonous grass, were supplanted by tall solitary trees, amongst which the lofty tamarind rose conspicuously graceful, and a card-table-like swamp, cut by a network of streams, nullahs, and stagnant pools, gave way to dry healthy slopes, with short steep pitches, and gently shelving hills. The beams of the large sun of the equator—and nowhere have I seen the rulers of night and day so large—danced gaily upon blocks and pebbles of red, yellow, and dazzling snowy quartz, and the bright sea-breeze waved the summits of the trees, from which depended graceful llianas, and wood-apples large as melons, whilst creepers, like vine tendrils, rising from large bulbs of brown-grey wood, clung closely to their stalwart trunks. Monkeys played at hide-and-seek, chattering behind the bolls, as the iguana, with its painted scale-armour, issued forth to bask upon the sunny bank; white-breasted ravens cawed when disturbed from their perching-places; doves cooed on the well-clothed boughs, and hawks soared high in the transparent sky. The field-cricket chirped like the Italian cigala in the shady bush, and everywhere, from air, from earth, from the hill slopes above, and from the marshes below, the hum, the buzz, and the loud continuous voice of insect life, through the length of the day, spoke out its natural joy. Our gipsy encampment lay

By night, the soothing murmurs of the stream at the hill’s base rose mingled with the faint rustling of the breeze, which at times broken by the scream of the night-heron, the bellow of the bull-frog in his swampy home, the cynhyæna’s whimper, and the fox’s whining bark, sounded through the silence most musical, most melancholy. Instead of the cold night rain, and the soughing of the blast, the view disclosed a peaceful scene, the moonbeams lying like sheets of snow upon the ruddy highlands, and the stars hanging like lamps of gold from the dome of infinite blue. I never wearied with contemplating the scene, for, contrasting with the splendours around me, still stretched in sight the Slough of Despond, unhappy Zungomero, lead-coloured above, mud-coloured below, wind-swept, fog-veiled, and deluged by clouds that dared not approach these Delectable Mountains.

During a day’s halt at this sanitarium fresh diversions agitated the party. The Baloch, weary of worrying one another, began to try their ’prentice hands upon the sons of Ramji, and these fortified by the sturdy attitude of Muinyi Kidogo, manfully resolved to hold their own. The asses fought throughout the livelong night, and, contrary to the custom of their genus, strayed from one another by day. And as,

Said bin Salim, who hated and was hated by the Baloch, on account of their divided interests, began to hate and to be hated by the sons of Ramji. His four children, the most ignoble of their ignoble race, were to him as the apples of his eyes. He had entered their names as public porters, yet, with characteristic egotism and self-tenderness, he was resolved that they should work for none but their master, and that even in this their labour should as much as possible fall upon the shoulders of others. His tent was always the first pitched and his fire the first built; his slaves were rewarded with such luxuries as ghee, honey, and turmeric, when no one in camp, ourselves included, could procure them. When all wanted clothes he clad his children out of the outfit as if it had been his own, and, till strong remonstrances were made, large necklaces of beads decked their sooty necks. On the return-march he preferred to pay hire for three porters rather than to allow the fat lazy knaves to carry a bed or a few gourds. They became of course insolent and unmanageable—more than once they gave trouble by pointing their muskets at the Baloch and the porters, and they would draw their knives and stab at a man who refused to give up his firewood or his hearth-stones, without incurring a word of blame from their master. Encouraged by impunity they robbed us impudently; curry-stuff was soon exhausted, the salt-bottles showed great gaps, and cigar-ends were occasionally seen upon the road-side. The Goanese accused the slaves, and the slaves the Goanese; probably both parties for once spoke the truth.

Said bin Salim’s silly favouritism naturally aroused the haughty Kidogo’s bile; the sons of Ramji, consequently, worked less than before. The two worthies, Arab and African, never, however, quarrelled, no harsh word passed between them; with smiles upon their faces, and a bitter hate at heart, they confined themselves to all manner of backbiting and talebearing. Said bin Salim sternly declared to me that he would never rest satisfied until Kidogo’s sword was broken and his back was scarified at the flagstaff of Zanzibar; but I guessed that this “wrathful mouse and most magnanimous dove” would, long before his journey’s end, have forgotten all his vengeance. Kidogo asserted that the Muarabu or Arab was a green-horn, and frequently suggested the propriety of “planting” him. At last this continual harping upon the same chord became so offensive, that B’ana Saidi was forbidden to pronounce the name of Muinyi Kidogo, and Muinyi Kidogo was ordered never to utter the words B’ana Saidi before the exasperated leader of the Expedition, who could not, like these squabblers, complain, resent, forget and forgive, in the short space of a single hour.

We left Mzizi Mdogo on the 9th August, much cheered by the well-omened appearance of a bird with red bill, white breast, and long tail-feathers. The path ran over a succession of short steep hills with a rufous-brown soil, dotted with blocks and stones, thinly veiled with grass, and already displaying signs of aridity in the growth of aloetic and thorny plants, the Cactus and the larger Asclepias, the Euphorbia or Spurge-wort, and the stunted Mimosa. The Calabash, however, still rose a stately tree, and there was a sprinkling of the fine Tamarinds which have lent their name to the district. The Tamarind, called by the Arabs of Zanzibar “Subar,” extends from the coast to the Lake Regions: with its lofty stem, its feathery leaflets, and its branches spreading dark cool shade, it is a beautiful feature in African landscape. The acidulated fruit is doubtless a palliative and a corrective to bilious affections. The people of the country merely peel and press it into bark baskets, consequently it soon becomes viscid, and is spoiled by mildew; they ignore the art of extracting from it an intoxicating liquor. The Arabs, who use it extensively in cooking, steam, sun-dry, and knead it, with a little salt and oil to prevent the effects of damp, into balls: thus prepared and preserved from the air, it will keep for years.

On the way we were saddened by the sight of the clean-picked skeletons, and here and there the swollen corpses, of porters who had perished in this place of starvation. A single large body which had lost fifty of its number by small-pox, had passed us but yesterday on the road, and the sight of their deceased comrades recalled to our minds terrible spectacles; men staggering on blinded by disease, and mothers carrying on their backs infants as loathsome objects as themselves. The wretches would not leave the path, every step in their state of failing strength was precious; he who once fell would never rise again; no village would admit death into its precincts, no relation nor friend would return for them, and they would lie till their agony was ended by the raven and vulture, the Fisi and the fox. Near every Khambi or Kraal I remarked detached tents which, according to the guides, were set apart for those seized with the fell disease. Under these circumstances, as might be expected, several of our party caught the infection; they lagged behind and probably threw themselves into some jungle, for the path when revisited showed no signs of them.

We spent 4 hrs. 30′ in weary marching, occasionally halting to reload the asses that threw their packs. Near the Mgeta River, which was again forded six times, the vegetation became tall and thick, grasses obstructed the path, and in the dense jungle on the banks of the stream, the Cowhage (Dolichos pruriens,) and stiff reeds known as the “wild sugar-cane,” annoyed the half-naked porters. Thus bounded and approached by muddy and slippery, or by steep and stony inclines, the stream shrank to a mountain torrent, in places hardly fifty feet broad; the flow was swift, the waters were dyed by the soil a ruddy brown, and the bed was sandy and sometimes rocky with boulders of primitive formation, streaked with lines of snow-white quartz. Near the end of the marsh we ascended a short steep staircase of rock and root, with a dwarf precipice overhanging the river on the right, which was dangerous for the laden beasts as they crawled like beetles up the path. At 3 P.M. we arrived at a kraal called Cha K’henge—of the iguana, from the number of these animals found near the stream. It was a delightful spot, equal to Mzizi Mdogo in purity of air, and commanding a fair prospect of the now distant Dut’humi Highlands.

The next day was a forced halt at Cha K’henge. Of two asses that had been left behind one was recovered, the other was abandoned to its fate. The animals purchased at Zanzibar were falling off visibly in condition. Accustomed to a kind of grass which nowhere grows upon these sunburnt hills, they had regular feeds of holcus, but that, as Said bin Salim expressed himself, was only coffee to them. The Wanyamwezi asses, however, managed to pick a sustenance from the rushes and from the half-burned stubbles, when fortunate enough to find any. Sickness again declared itself. Shahdad the Baloch bellowed like a bull with fever pains, Gaetano complained that he was suffering tortures generally, two of the Wanyamwezi were incapacitated by the symptoms preliminary to small-pox from carrying their packs, and a third was prostrated by ague. We started, however, on the next day for a long march which concluded, the passage of the “Tamarind Hills.” Crossing a country broken by dry nullahs, or rather ditches, we traversed a seam of forest with a deep woody ravine on the right, and twice unpacked and reloaded the asses, who lay down instead of breasting the difficulties: a muddy swamp full of water-courses, and the high earth-banks of the Rufuta a Fiumara, here dry during the hot season. Thence, winding along a hill-flank, to avoid a bend in the bed, the path plunged into the sole of the Rufuta. This main-drain of the lower gradients carries off, according to the guides, the waters of the high ground around it into the Mgeta. The bed, which varies from three to sixteen feet in breadth, serpentines abruptly through the hills: its surface is either deep sand or clay, sopped with water, which near the head becomes a thin fillet, ankle-deep, now sweet, then salt: the mud is tinged in places with a solution of iron, showing, when stagnant, prismatic and iridescent tints. Where narrowest, the tall grasses of the banks meet across the gut, which, after a few yards of short, sharp winding, opens out again. The walls are in some parts earth, in others blocks of gray syenite, which here and there encumber the bed: on the right, near the end of the stage, the hills above seem to overhang the Fuimara in almost perpendicular masses of sandstone, from whose chinks spring the gnarled roots of tall trees corded with creepers, overgrown with parasites; and hung with fruits like footballs, dangling from twines sometimes thirty feet long. The lower banks, where not choked with rush, are overgrown with the brightest verdure, and with the feathery bamboo rising and falling before the wind. The corpses of porters were even more numerous than on the yester: our Muslems passed them with averted faces and with the low “la haul!” of disgust, and a decrepid old Mnyamwezi porter gazed at them and wept for himself. About 2 P.M., turning abruptly from the bed, we crawled up a short stony steep strewed with our asses and their loads; and reaching the summit of a dwarf cone near the foot of the “Goma Pass,” we found the usual outlying huts for porters dying of small-pox, and an old kraal, which we made comfortable for the night. In the extensive prospect around, the little beehive villages of the Wakaguru and the Wakwivi, sub-tribes of the Wasagara, peeped from afar out of the forest nooks on the distant hill-folds. The people are rich in flocks and grain, but a sad experience has taught them to shun intercourse with all strangers, Arabs and Wasawahili, Wamrima and Wanyamwezi. In happier days the road was lined with large villages, of which now not a trace remains.

A Boiling Point Thermometer by Cox, the gift of Lieut.-Colonel Hamerton, and left with him by Captain, now Admiral Smyth, F. R. G. S., who had used it in measuring the Andes, had been accidentally broken by my companion at Cha K’henge. Arrived at Rufuta, I found that a second B. P. by Newman, and a Bath-Thermometer by the same maker, had been torn so violently from their box that even the well-soldered handles were wrenched off. But a few days afterwards our third B. P. was rendered useless by the carelessness of Gaetano. Thus, of the only three really accurate hypsometrical instruments which we possessed,—the Barometer had come to grief, and no aneroid had been sent from Bombay—not one was spared to reach the Lake. We saved, however, two Bath-Thermometers marked Newman, and Johnson and Co., Bombay, which did good service, and one of which was afterwards corrected by being boiled at sea-level. I may here observe that on such journeys, where triangulation is impossible, and where the delicate aneroid and the Mountain Barometer can scarcely be carried without accident, the thermometer is at present the traveller’s stand-by. It abounds, however, in elements of error. The elasticity of the glass, especially in a new instrument, causes the mercury to subside below the graduated scale. The difference of level in a covered “shaving-pot” and in an open pan exposed to the wind, will sometimes amount to 1° F. = 500 feet: they therefore are in error who declare that any vessel suffices for the purpose of boiling. Finally, in all but the best instruments the air is not thoroughly expelled from the tube: indeed some writers, Dr. Buist, for instance, actually advise the error.

Another ass was left at Rufuta unable to stand, and anxiously eyeing its stomach, whereby the Baloch conjectured that it was dying of a poisonous grass. Having to ascend on the 12th August the Goma Pass of the Rufuta, or the Eastern Range, I had arranged with Kidogo and the Kirangozi, or guide, that the porters should proceed with their packs, and after topping the hill, should return, for a consideration, to assist the asses. None, however, reappearing, when the sun had risen a spear’s length we set out, hugging the hill-flanks, with deep ravines yawning on the right. Presently after passing through a clear forest of tall scattered trees, between whose trunks were visible on both sides in perspective, far below, long rolling tracts of well-wooded land broken by ravines and cut by water-courses, we arrived at the foot of a steep hill. The ascent was a kind of ramp, composed of earth-steps, clods bound by strong tenacious roots, and thickly strewn with blocks of schiste, micacious grit, and a sandstone showing the presence of iron. The summit of this “kloof” was ascertained to rise 2,235 feet above sea-level. It led to an easy descent along the flank of a hill commanding on the left hand, below a precipitous foreground, a fine bird’s-eye view of scattered cone and wavy ridge rising and falling in a long roll, and on a scale decreasing till they settled into a line of hazy-blue horizon, which had all the effect of a circumambient ocean. We reached the remains of a kraal on the summit of a dwarf hill called Mfu’uni, from the abundance of the Mfu’u tree, which bears an edible apple externally like the smallest “crab,” but containing a stone of inordinate proportions: below the encamping ground the Pagazi found a runnel of pure water, which derived its name from the station. In former times Mfu’uni was a populous settlement; the kidnapping parties from the coast, and especially the filibusters of Whinde, have restored it to the fox and the cynhyæna, its “old inhabitants.” I spent a sleepless night in watching each star as it sank and set in its turn, piercing with a last twinkle the thin silhouette of tall trees that fringed the hilly rim of the horizon, and in admiring the hardness of the bull-headed Mabruki, as he lay half-roasted by the fire and half-frozen by the cold southern gale.

Rations had been issued at K’hutu to all hands for three days, the time in which they expected to make the principal provisioning-place, “Muhama.” They had consumed, as usual, their stores with the utmost possible quickness; it was our fifth day, and Muhama was still a long march distant. On the 13th August, therefore, in that hot haste which promises cold speed, we loaded at dawn, and ascended the last step of the pass by an easy path. The summit was thickly wooded; the hills were crowned with trees; the ravines were a mass of tangled verdure; and from the Dub (Cynodon dactylon, a nutritive and favourite food for cattle in India) and other grasses arose a sickening odour of decay. A Scotch mist, thick and raw, hung over the hill-tops, and about 10 P.M. a fiery outburst of sunshine told severely upon hungry and fever-stricken men. From the level table-summit of the range the route descended rapidly at first, but presently stretching out into gentle slopes, totally unlike the abrupt eastern or seaward face of the mountains: I counted twelve distinct rises and fifteen falls, separated by tree-clad lines of half-dried nullahs, which were choked with ill-savoured weeds. We halted every quarter of an hour to raise and reload the asses; when on the ground, they were invariably abandoned by the donkey-men. My companion’s bedding was found near the path, where it had been left by its porter, a slave given at Zungomero to Muinyi Wazira by his drunken brother. The fellow had been sworn by his mganga, or medicine-man, not to desert, and he had respected his oath for the long length of a week. A dispute with another man, however, had irritated him: he quietly threw his burden, and ran down the nearest steep, probably to fall into the hands of the Wakwivi. As the rain-catching peaks were left behind, the slopes of dry soil began to show sunburnt herbage and tufty grass. Signs of lions appeared numerous, and the cactaceous and aloetic plants that live on arid soil again met the eye. About noon we forded the little Zonhwe River, a stream of sweet water here flowing westward, in a bed of mire and grass, under high banks bearing a dense bush. Two hours afterwards I suddenly came upon the advance-guard, halted, and the asses unloaded, in a dry water-course, called in the map, from our misadventure, “Overshot Nullah.” A caravan of Wanyamwezi had misdirected them, Muinyi Wazira had in vain warned them of their error, he was overruled by Kidogo, and the Baloch had insisted upon camping at the first place where they expected to find a spring. Like all soft men, they were most impatient of thirst, and nothing caused so much grumbling and discontent as the cry of “Maji mb’hali!” (water is far!) That night, therefore, after a long march of fifteen miles, they again slept supperless.

On the 14th of August we loaded early, and through spitting rains from the south-east hills we marched back for two hours from the Overshot Nullah to Zonhwe, the small and newly-built settlement which we had missed on the preceding day. Several of the porters had disappeared during the night. Men were sent in all directions for provisions, which came in, however, slowly and scantily; and the noise made by the slaves—they were pulling down Said bin Salim’s hut, which had accidentally caught fire—frightened away the country-people. We were, therefore, detained in this unwholesome spot for two days.

Zonhwe was the turning-point of the Expedition’s difficulties. Another ass had died, reducing the number to twenty-three, and the Baloch, at first contented with two, doubled their requirements, and on the 14th August took a fifth, besides placing all their powder upon our hard-worked animals. I therefore proposed to the Jemadar that the cloth, the beads, and the other similar luggage of his men, should be packed, sealed up, and inserted into the porters’ loads, of which several had shrunk to half-weight. He probably thought the suggestion a ruse on my part to discover the means by which their property had almost trebled its quantity; his men, moreover, had become thoroughly weary of a journey where provisions were not always obtainable, and they had persuaded themselves that Lieut.-Col. Hamerton’s decease had left me without support from the government of Zanzibar. After a priming with opium, the monocular returned and reported that his men refused to open their baggage, declaring their property to be “on their own heads.” Whilst I was explaining the object of the measure, the escort appeared in mass, and, with noise sufficient for a general action, ostentatiously strewed their old clothes upon the ground, declaring that at Zanzibar they were honourable men, and boasting that the Baloch were entrusted with lacs of dollars by the Sayyid Said. Again I offered reasons, which, as is the wont of the world in such cases, served only to make them more hopelessly unreasonable. The Jemadar accused me of starving the party. I told him not to eat abominations, upon which, clapping hand to hilt, he theatrically forbade me to repeat the words. Being prostrated at the time by fever, I could only show him how little dangerous he was by using the same phrase half a dozen times. He then turned fiercely upon the timid Said bin Salim, and having safely vented the excess of his wrath, he departed to hold a colloquy with his men.

The debate was purposely conducted in so loud a tone that every word reached my ears. Khudabakhsh, from first to last my evil genius and the mainspring of all mischief, threatened to take “that man’s life,” at the risk of chains for the remainder of his days. Another opined, that “in all Nazarenes there is no good.” All complained that they had no “hishmat” (respect!), no food, and, above everything, no meat.

Presently Said bin Salim was deputed by them to state that for the future they would require one sheep per diem—men who, when at Zanzibar, saw flesh probably once a year on the Eed. This being inadmissible, they demanded three cloths daily instead of one. I would willingly have given them two, as long as provisions continued scarce and dear, but the shade of concession made them raise the number to four. They declared that in case of refusal they would sleep at the village, and on the next day would return to Zanzibar. Receiving a contemptuous answer, they marched away in a body, noisily declaring that they were going to make instant preparation for departure.

Such a proceeding on the part of several of these mercenaries was inexcusable. They had been treated with kindness, and even indulgence. They had hitherto never complained, simply because they had no cause for complaint. One man, Ismail, who suffered from dysentery, had been regularly supplied with food cooked by the Goanese; and even while we dragged along our fevered frames on foot, he was allowed to ride an ass. Yet the recreant never attempted a word of dissuasion, and deserted with the rest.

After the disappearance of the Baloch, the Sons of Ramji were summoned. I had privily ascertained from Said bin Salim the opinions of these men concerning their leader: they said but little evil, complaining principally of the Englishman’s “heat,” and that he was not wholly ruled by their rascalities, whereas the Baloch in their private confabs never failed to indulge in the choicest of Oriental Billingsgate. The slaves, when they heard the state of the case, cheerfully promised to stand by us, but on the same evening, assembled by Kidogo, they agreed to follow the example of the escort on the first justifiable occasion. I did not learn this till some days afterwards, and even if I had been told it on the spot, it would have mattered little. My companion and I had made up our minds, in case of the escort and the slaves deserting, to bury our baggage, and to trust ourselves in the hands of the Wanyamwezi porters. The storm, however,—a brutum fulmen—blew over with only noise.

A march was ordered for the next day—the 17th August. As the asses were being loaded, appeared the one-eyed Jemadar, with Greybeard Musa and Darwaysh, looking more crestfallen and foolish than they had ever looked before. They took my hand with a polite violence, begged suppliantly for a paper of dismissal to “cover their shame,” and declared that, so far from deserting me, I was deserting them. As this required no reply, I mounted and rode on.

The path fell easily westwards down a long grassy and jungly incline, cut by several water-courses. About noon, I lay down half-fainting in the sandy bed of the Muhama Nullah—the “Palmetto,” or “Fan-palm;” and retaining Wazira and Mabruki, I urged the caravan forwards, that my companion might send me back a hammock from the halting-place. Suddenly appeared the whole body of deserters shouldering—as porters and asses had been taken from them—their luggage, which outwardly consisted of cloth, dirty rags, green skins, old earthen pots, and greasy gourds and calabashes. They led me to a part of the nullah where stagnant water was found, and showing abundant penitence, they ever and anon attempted excuses, which were reserved for consideration. At 3 P.M., no hammock appearing, I remounted, and pursued a path over rolling ground, with masses of dwarf-hill flanking a low bottom, which renewed the scenery of the “Slough of Despond”—Zungomero. Again the land, matted with putrid grass, displayed the calabash and the hyphæna, the papaw and the palmetto; the holcus and maize were of luxuriant dimensions, and deep rat-holes, enlarged by the boy-hunters, broke the grassy path. I found two little villages, inhabitated by Wangindo and Mandandu immigrants from the vicinity of Kilwa. Then appeared on a hill-side the Kraal in which the caravan had halted; the party had lost the road, and had been dispersed by a swarm of wild bees, an accident even more frequent in East Africa than in India.

Next morning the Baloch were harangued; they professed themselves profoundly penitent, and attributing their unsoldier-like conduct to opium, and to the Wiswas, the temptations of Sathanas, they promised to reform. The promise was kept till we reached Ugogi. They were, however, always an encumbrance; they did no good beyond creating an impression, and “making the careless Æthiopians afraid.” I saw them, it is true, in their worst colours. They held themselves to be servants of their prince, and as no Eastern man can or will serve two masters, they forfeited all claim to their sole good quality—manageability. As men, they had no stamina; after a few severe marches they murmured that

Their constitutions, sapped by long residence at Zanzibar, were subject to many ailments, and in sickness they were softer than Indian Pariahs. Under the slightest attack of fever, they threw themselves moaning upon the ground; they were soon deterred by the sun from bringing up the rear, and by night they would not keep watch or ward even when in actual danger of robbery. Notwithstanding their affectation of military carriage their bravery was more than problematical; they were disciplined only by their fears. As men at arms, one and all deserved to wear the wooden spoon: I saw the whole garrison of Kaole firing for an hour, without effect, at a shell, stuck on a stick, distant about a dozen paces: our party expended thirty pounds of gunpowder without bagging a pair of antelope, and it was impossible to trust them with ammunition; when unable to sell it, they wasted it upon small birds. Ever claiming for themselves “hishmat,” or respect, they forgot their own proverb that “courtesy hath two heads;” they complained that they were not seated half the day in our tents, and the being “told to depart,” when their terribly long visits rendered the measure necessary, was a standing grievance. Like the lower races of Orientals, they were ever attempting to intrude, to thrust themselves forwards, to take an ell when an inch was offered; they considered all but themselves fools, ready to be imposed upon by the flimsiest lie, by the shallowest artifices. Gratitude they ignored; with them a favour granted was but an earnest of favours to come, and one refusal obliterated the trace of a hundred largesses. Their objects in life seemed to be eating, and buying slaves; their pleasures, drinking and intrigue. Insatiable beggars were they; noisy, boisterous, foul-mouthed knaves, swearers “with voices like cannons;” rude and forward in manner, low and abusive in language, so slanderous that for want of other subjects they would calumniate one another, and requiring a periodical check to their presumption. I might have spent the whole of my day in superintending the food of these thirteen “great eaters and little runners.” Repeatedly warned, both by myself and by my companion, that their insubordination would prevent our recommending them for recompense at the end of the journey, they could not check repeated ebullitions of temper. Before arrival at the coast they seemed to have made up their minds that they had not fulfilled the conditions of reward. After my departure from Zanzibar, however, they persuaded Lieut.-Col. Hamerton’s successor to report officially to the Government of Bombay “the claims of these men, the hardships they endured, and the fidelity and perseverance they showed!”

At Muhama I halted three days, a delay which generally occurred before long desert marches for which provisions are required. On the first, Kidogo would bring about sixty pounds of grain; on the second, he would disperse his men throughout the villages, and procure the 300 pounds required for five marches; and on the third, he would cause it to be husked and pounded, so as to be ready for the morrow. Three up-caravans, containing a total of about 150 men, suffering severely from small-pox, here passed us. One was commanded by Khalfan bin Muallim Salim and his brother Id, coast Arabs, whom we afterwards met at two places. He told me several deliberate falsehoods about the twenty-two porters that were to follow us, for instance, that he had left them, halted by disease, at Kidunda, in the maritime region, under the command of one Abdullah bin Jumah, and thus he led me to expect them at a time when they had not even been engaged. He and his men also spread reports in Ugogo and other places where the people are peculiarly suspicious concerning the magical and malignant powers of the “whites;” in fact, he showed all the bad spirit of his bastard blood. At Muhama, the furthest point westward to which the vuli or autumnal rains extend, the climate was still that of the Rufuta Range, foggy, misty mornings, white rags of cloudbank from the table-cloths outspread upon the heights, clear days, with hot suns and chilling south winds, and raw dewy nights. I again suffered from fever; the attack, after lasting seven days, disappeared, leaving, however, hepatic complications, which having lasted uninterruptedly ten months, either wore themselves out, or yielded to the action of acids, narcotics, and stimulants tardily forwarded from Zanzibar. Here also over-fatigue, in a fruitless shooting-excursion, combined with the mephitic air of stagnant, weedy waters, caused a return of my companion’s fever.

Two other Wanyamwezi porters were laid up with small-pox. One ass died of fatigue, whilst a second torn by a hyæna, and a third too weak to walk, were left, together with the animal that had been stung by bees, in charge of Mpambe, headman of the Wangindo. Being now reduced to the number of nineteen beasts, I submitted to Said bin Salim the advisability of leaving behind wire and ammunition, either cached in the jungle, as is the custom of these lands, or entrusted to the headman. The Arab approved; Kidogo, however, dissented. I took the opinion of the latter, he was positive that the effects once abandoned would never be recovered, and that the headman, who appeared a kind of cunning idiot, was not to be trusted. Some months afterwards I commissioned an Arab merchant, who was marching towards the coast, to recover the asses left in the charge of Mpambe; the latter refused to give them up, thus proving the soundness of Kidogo’s judgment.

Having collected with difficulty—the land was sun-cracked, and the harvest-store had been concealed by the people—some supplies, but scarcely sufficient for the long desert tract, we began, on the 21st of August, to cross the longitudinal plain that gently shelving westward separates the Rufuta from the second, or Mukondokwa Range. The plain was enclosed on all sides by low lines of distant hill, and cut by deep nullahs, which gave more than the usual amount of trouble. The tall Palmyra (Borassus Flabelliformis), whose majestic bulging column renders it so difficult to climb, was a novel feature in the scenery. This tree, the Mvumo of East Africa, and the Deleb-palm of the Upper Nile, is scattered through the interior, extending to the far south. On this line it is more common in Western Unyamwezi, where, and where only, an intoxicating toddy is drawn from the cut frond, than elsewhere. The country abounded in game, but we were both too weak to work—my companion, indeed, was compelled to lag behind—and the Baloch, to whom the guns were lent, returned empty-handed. Sign of the Mbogo (Bos Caffer) here appeared; it is general in East Africa, especially upon the river plains where water abounds. These wild cattle are fine animals, somewhat larger than the common-sized English bullock, with uniform dun skins, never parti-coloured like the tame herds, and with thick black-brown horns, from twelve to thirteen inches broad at the base, diverging outwards, and incurved at the points, which in large specimens are distant about three feet from each other; they are separated by a narrow channel, and this in age becomes a solid mass of bone. The Mbogo is as dull of comprehension as it is fierce and powerful; affecting particular spots, it will often afford several chances of a successful shot to the Fundi—Shikari, or Chasseur—of a caravan: the Africans kill it with arrows. The flesh, though considered heating and bilious, is eaten, and the hide is preferred for thongs and reins to that of the tame animal.

The approach to the kraal was denoted by a dead level of dry, caked, and cracked mud, showing the subsidence of an extensive inundation. We passed a large camping-ground, affected by down-caravans, on the near side of the Makata, a long river-like “tank,” whose lay is E. by N. The oozy banks of this water, which is said to flow after rains into the Mukondokwa River, are fringed with liliaceous and other large aquatic plants; the water, though dark, is potable. After fording the tank, which was then breast-deep, we found on the further side the kraal used by porters of up-caravans, who sensibly avoid commencing the day with hard labour, and who fear that a sudden fall of rain might compel them to intempestive halts. In such places, throughout the country, there are two distinct khambi, one on each side of the obstacle, whether this be a river, a pass, or a populous clearing; in the latter case, caravans unload at the farther end of the cultivation, prepared to escape from a fray into the jungle, without running the gauntlet of the villages. That evening I tried to reduce the ever-increasing baggage of the sons of Ramji, who added to the heaps piled upon the wretched asses, now burdened with rations for several days, their drums and sleeping-hides, and their cocks and hens, whilst they left the beds and the cooking-utensils of the Goanese upon the ground. They informed me that if our animals could not carry their property, they could not drive our animals. The reply was significant. With some exertion of the “rascally virtue”—Prudence—I retired.

The night was disturbed only by mosquitoes. These piping pests, however, are less troublesome in this part of East Africa than might be expected from the nature and the position of the country, and the bite has little venom compared with those of the Mozambique, or even of Western India. The common culex is a large variety, of brownish or dun colour; its favourite breeding-places are the backwaters on the banks of rivers, and the margins of muddy pools, and upon the creeks of the maritime regions, and the Central Lakes.

Pursuing our march on the next day, I witnessed a curious contrast in this strange African nature, which is ever in extremes, and where extremes ever meet, where grace and beauty are seldom seen without a sudden change to a hideous grotesqueness. A splendid view charmed me in the morning. Above lay a sky of purest azure, flaked with fleecy opal-tinted vapours floating high in the empyrean, and catching the first roseate smiles of the unrisen sun. Long lines, one bluer than the other, broken by castellated crags and towers of most picturesque form, girdled the far horizon; the nearer heights were of a purplish-brown, and snowy mists hung like glaciers about their folds. The plain was a park in autumn, burnt tawny by the sun, patched with a darker hue where the people were firing the grass—a party was at work merrily, as if preparing for an English harvest-home—to start the animals, to promote the growth of a young crop, and, such is the popular belief, to attract rain. Calabashes, Palmyras, Tamarinds, and clumps of evergreen trees were scattered over the scene, each stretching its lordly arms over subject circlets of deep dew-fed verdure. Here the dove cooed loudly, and the guinea-fowl rang its wild cry, whilst the peewit chattered in the open stubble, and a little martin, the prettiest of its kind, contrasted by its nimble dartings along the ground with the condor wheeling slowly through the upper air. The most graceful of animals, the zebra and the antelope, browsed in the distance: now they stood to gaze upon the long line of porters, then, after leisurely pacing, with retrospective glances, in an opposite direction, they halted motionless for a moment, faced about once more to satiate curiosity, and lastly, terrified by their own fancy, they bounded in ricochets over the plain.

About noon the fair scene vanished as if by enchantment. We suddenly turned northwards into a tangled mass of tall fetid reeds, rank jungle and forest, with its decaying trunks encroaching upon the hole-pierced goat-track that zigzaged towards the Myombo River. This perennial stream rises, according to the guides, in an elevation opposite to the highlands of Dut’humi. It is about fifty feet broad at the ford, breast-deep, and the swift brown waters swirl under a canopy of the trees whose name it bears. The “Myombo” is a fine specimen of African timber, apparently unknown to the people of Zanzibar, but extending almost from the coast to the Lake Regions. The flower is greenish, with the overpowering smell of the Indian jasmines; the fruit is a large pod, containing ten or twelve long hard acorns, of a brown-black colour, set in cups which resemble red sealing-wax. The coarse bark is used for building huts and kraals, the inner fibre for “bast” and ropes, and the wood makes what Easterns call a hot fire, lasting long, and burning well out. After the fiery sun and the dry atmosphere of the plains, the sudden effect of the dank and clammy chill, the result of exceeding evaporation, under the impervious shades that line the river banks, was overpowering. In such places one feels as if poisoned by miasma; a shudder runs through the frame; and a cold perspiration, like the prelude for a fainting-fit, breaks from the brow. Unloading the asses, and fording the stream, we ascended the left bank, and occupied a kraal, with fires still smoking, on its summit. Though another porter was left behind with small-pox, I had little difficulty with the luggage on this march: the more I worked the men, the harder they worked. Besides, they seldom fell sick on the road, though often prostrated when halting, a phenomenon which my companion explained by their hard eating and little exercise when stationary, and which Said bin Salim more mercifully attributed to the fatigue and exposure of the journey taking effect when the excitement had passed away.

At dawn on the 23rd of August we resumed our journey, and in 4^hrs 30′ concluded the transit of the lateral plain, which separates the Rufuta from the Mukondokwa Range. The path wound over a wintry land, green with vegetation only in the vicinity of water. After struggling through a forest of canes, we heard a ngoma, or large drum, which astonished us, as we had not expected to find a village. Presently, falling into a network of paths, we lost our way. After long wandering we came upon a tobacco-field which the Baloch and the sons of Ramji had finished stripping, and conducted by some Wanyamwezi who had delayed returning to guide us, in order to indulge their love for drumming and plundering, we arrived at the débris of a once flourishing village of Wasagara, called Mbumi from its headman. A pitiable scene here presented itself. The huts were torn and half-burnt, and the ground was strewed with nets and drums, pestles and mortars, cots and fragments of rude furniture; and though no traces of blood were observed, it was evident that a Commando had lately taken place there. Said bin Salim opined this ruin to be the work of Khalfan bin Salim, the youth who had preceded us from Muhama; ever suspicious, he saw in it a plan adopted by the coast-Arab in order to raise against us the people of the mountains. Kidogo, observing that the damage was at least ten days’ old, more acutely attributed it to the Moslem kidnappers of Whinde, who, aided by the terrible Kisabengo, the robber-chief of Ukami, near K’hutu, harry the country with four or five hundred guns. Two of the wretched villagers were seen lurking in the jungle, not daring to revisit the wreck of their homes. Here again the Demon of Slavery will reign over a solitude of his own creation. Can it be that, by some inexplicable law, where Nature has done her best for the happiness of mankind, man, doomed to misery, must work out his own unhappiness? That night was spent at the deserted village by our men in drumming, singing, and gleaning all that Khalfan’s gang had left; they were, moreover, kept awake by fear lest they might be surprised by the remnants of the villagers.

Late in the morning of the 24th of August, after losing another ass, torn by a cynhyæna, we followed the path that leads from Mbumi along the right bank of the Mukondokwa River to its ford. The marcescent vegetation, and the tall, stiff, and thick-stalked grass, dripped with dew, which struck cold as a freezing-mixture. The path was slippery with mud, and man and beast were rendered wild by the cruel stings of a small red ant and a huge black pismire. The former cross the road in dense masses like the close columns of an army. They are large-headed, showing probably that they are the defenders of the republic, and that they perform the duties of soldiers in their excursions. Though they cannot spring, they show great quickness in fastening themselves to the foot or ankle as it brushes over them. The pismire, known to the people as the “chungu-fundo,” or “siyafu” from the Arabic “siyaf,” is a horse-ant, about an inch in length, whose bulldog-like head and powerful mandibles enable it to destroy rats and mice, lizards and snakes. It loves damp places upon the banks of rivers and stagnant waters; it burrows but never raises hills, and it appears scattered for miles over the paths. Like the other species, it knows neither fear nor sense of fatigue; it rushes to annihilation without hesitating, and it cannot be expelled from a hut except by fire or boiling water. Its bite, which is the preamble to its meal, burns like a pinch with a red-hot needle; and when it sets to work, twisting itself round and “accroupi” in its eagerness for food, it may be pulled in two without relaxing its hold. The favourite food of this pismire is the termite: its mortal enemy is a large ginger-coloured ant, called from its painful wound “maji m’oto,” or “hot-water.” In this foul jungle our men also suffered severely from the tzetze. This fly, the torment of Cape travellers, was limited, by Dr. Livingstone, to the regions south of the Zambezi river. A specimen, brought home by me and submitted to Mr. Adam White, of the British Museum, was pronounced by him to be a true Glossina morsitans, and Mr. Petherick has fixed its limits about eight degrees north of the equator. On the line followed by the Expedition, the tzetze was found extending from Usagara westward as far as the Central Lakes; its usual habitat is the jungle-strip which encloses each patch of cultivated ground, and in the latter it is rarely seen. It has more persistency of purpose even than the Egyptian fly, and when beaten off it will return half a dozen times to the charge; it cannot be killed except by a smart blow, and its long sharp proboscis draws blood even through a canvas hammock. It is not feared by the naked traveller; the sting is as painful as that of an English horsefly, and leaves a lasting trace, but this hard-skinned people expect no evil consequences from it. In the vicinity of Kilwa it was heard of under the name of “kipanga,” the “little sword.” It is difficult to conceive the purpose for which this plague was placed in a land so eminently fitted for breeding cattle and for agriculture, which without animals cannot be greatly extended, except as an exercise for human ingenuity to remove. Possibly at some future day, when the country becomes valuable, the tzetze may be exterminated by the introduction of some insectivorous bird, which will be the greatest benefactor that Central Africa ever knew.

After about an hour’s march, the narrow tunnel in the jungle—it was so close that only one ass could be led up and unloaded at a time—debouched upon the Mukondokwa ford. The view was not unpleasing. The swift brown stream was broadened by a branch-islet in its upper bed to nearly a hundred yards, and its margins were fringed with rushes backed by a screen of dense verdure and tall trees which occupied the narrow space between the water and the hills. The descent and the landing-place were equally bad. Slipping down the steep miry bank the porters sank into the river breast-deep, causing not a little damage to their loads: the ford now wetted the waist then the knee, and the landing-place was a kind of hippopotamus-run of thick slushy mud, floored with roots and branches, snags and sawyers, and backed by a quagmire rendered passable only by its matwork of tough grass-canes laid by their own weight. Having crossed over on our men’s backs, we ascended a little rise and lay down somewhat in the condition of travelling Manes fresh from the transit of the Styx. I ordered back Kidogo with a gang of porters to assist Said bin Salim who was bringing up the rear: he promised to go but he went the wrong way—forwards. Resuming our march along the river’s left or northern bank, we wound along the shoulders and the bases of hills, sometimes ascending the spurs of stony and jungly eminences, where the paths were unusually rough and precipitous, at other times descending into the stagnant lagoons, the reedy and rushy swamps, and the deep bogs which margin the stream. After a total of six hours we reached a kraal situated upon the sloping ground at the foot of the northern walls which limit the grassy river basin: through this the Mukondokwa flows in a dark turbid stream now narrowed to about forty feet. The district of “Kadetamare” was formerly a provisioning station where even cattle were purchaseable, a rare exception to the rule in the smaller settlements of Usagara. I at once sent men to collect rations, none, however, were procurable: meeting a small party that were bringing grain from Rumuma, they learned that there was a famine in the land.

At Kadetamare the only pedometer, a patent watch-shaped instrument, broke down, probably from the effects of the climate. Whilst carried by my companion it gave a steady exaggerative rate, but being set to the usual military pace of 30 inches, when transferred to the person of “Seedy Bombay” and others, it became worse than useless, sometimes showing 25 for 13 miles. I would suggest to future explorers in these regions, as the best and the most lasting means of measuring distances, two of the small wheelbarrow perambulators—it is vain to put trust in a single instrument—which can each be rolled on by one man. And when these are spoilt or stolen, timing with the watch, and a correct estimate of the walking rate combined with compass-bearings, the mean of the oscillations being taken when on the march, would give a “dead-reckoning,” which checked by latitudes, as often as the cloudy skies permit, and by a few longitudes at crucial stations, would afford materials for a map approximating as nearly to correctness as could be desired in a country where a “handful of miles” little matters. The other instruments, though carefully protected from the air, fared not better than the pedometer: with three pocket-chronometers and a valuable lever-watch, we were at last reduced to find time by a sixpenny sun-dial. Before the first fortnight after our second landing in Africa had elapsed, all these instruments, notwithstanding the time and trouble devoted to them by my companion, at Zanzibar, failed in their ratings and became useless for chronometric longitudes. Two of them (Ed. Baker, London, No. 863, and Barraud, London, No. 2/537), stopped without apparent reason. A third, a first-rate article (Parkinson and Frodsham, No. 2955), issued to me from the Royal Observatory Greenwich, at the kind suggestion of Capt. Belcher, of the Admiralty, had its glass broken and its second-hand lost by the blunderer Gaetano: we remedied that evil by counting the ticks without other trouble than that caused by the odd number,—5 to 2 seconds. This instrument also summarily struck work on the 9th November, 1858, the day before we intended to have “made a night of it” at Jiwe la Mkoa. This may serve as a warning for future travellers to avoid instruments so delicate that a jolt will disorder them—the hair-spring of the lever watch was broken by my companion in jumping out of a canoe—and which no one but a professional can attempt to repair. A box chronometer carried in a “petarah” by a pole swung between two men so as to preserve its horizontality, might outlast the pocket-instruments, yet we read in Capt. Owens celebrated survey of the African coasts, that out of nine not one kept rate without fluctuations. The best plan would be to purchase half-a-dozen sound second-hand watches, carefully inspected and cleaned, and to use one at a time; if gold-mounted, they would form acceptable presents to the Arabs, and ultimately would prove economical by obviating the necessity of parting with more valuable articles.

The break-down of the last chronometer disheartened us for a time. Presently when our brains, addled by sun and sickness, had recovered tone by a return to the Usagara sanitarium, we remembered a rough and ready succedaneum for instruments. I need scarcely tell the reader that, unhappily for travellers, the only means of ascertaining the longitude of a place is by finding the difference between the local and Greenwich times, and that this difference of time with certain corrections is converted into distance of space. We split a 4 oz. rifle-ball, inserted into it a string measuring 39 inches from the point of suspension to the centre of the weight, and fixed it by hammering the halves together. The loose end of the cord was attached to a three-edged file as a pivot, and this was lashed firmly to the branch of a tree sheltered as much as possible from the wind. Local time was ascertained with a sextant by taking the altitude of a star or a planet; Greenwich time by a distance between the star or planet and the moon, and the vibrations of our rude pendulum did all that a watch could do, by registering the seconds that elapsed between the several observations.

I am somewhat presuming upon the subject, but perhaps it may here be better to chronicle the accidents which happened to the rest of our instruments. We had two Schmalcalder’s compasses (H. Barron & Co., 26, Oxenden Street), which, when the paste-board faces had been acclimatized and no longer curled up against their glasses, did good service; one of them was trodden upon by my companion, the other by a sailor during a cruise on the lake. We returned with a single instrument, the gift of my old friend Lieut.-General Monteith; it had surveyed Persia, and outlasting two long excursions into Eastern Africa, it still outlives and probably will outlive many of the showy articles now supplied by the trade. Finally, a ship’s compass, mounted in gimbals for boat-work and indented for upon the Engineer’s Stores, Bombay, soon became lumber, its oscillations were too sluggish to be useful.

We left Kadetamare on the 25th August, to ascend the fluviatile valley of the Mukondokwa. According to the guides this stream is the upper course of the Kingani River, with which it anastomoses in Uzaramo(?) It cuts its way through the chain to which it gives a name, by a transversal valley perpendicular to the lay, and so conveniently disposed that the mountains seem rather to be made for their drain than the drain for its mountains. The fluviatile valley is apparently girt on all sides by high peaks, with homesteads smoking and cattle grazing on all sides. Crippled by the night-cold that rose from the river-bed, and then wet through with the dew that dripped from the tall grass, we traversed, within ear-shot of the frightened villagers who hailed one another from the heights, some fields of grain and tobacco that had been lately reaped. After an hour and a-half of marching we arrived at the second ford of the Mukondokwa. Receiving less drainage than in the lower bed, the stream was narrower and only knee-deep; the landing-place of sloppy mud caused, however, many accidents to the asses, and on inspecting our stores a few days afterwards we found them all soft and mildewed. The reader will wonder that on these occasions we did not personally inspect the proceedings of our careless followers. The fact is we were physically and morally incapacitated for any exertion beyond balancing ourselves upon the donkeys; at Kadetamare I had laid in another stock of fever, and my companion had not recovered from his second severe attack. After fording the Mukondokwa we followed the right bank through cultivation, grass, and trees, up a gradually broadening valley peculiarly rich in field-rats. The path then crossing sundry swamps and nullahs, hill-spurs and “neat’s tongues,” equally rough thorny and precipitous, presently fell into a river-reach where pools of water, breast deep, and hedged in by impassable jungle and long runs of slushy mire festering in a furious sun, severely tried the porters and asses. Thence the road wound under the high hills to the South, whose flanks were smoking with extensive conflagrations, whilst on the opposite or left bank of the river, the opening valley displayed a forest of palms and tall trees. About 2 P.M. I reached the ground, a hutless circle of thorns, called by our people Muinyi: the rear-guard, however, did not straggle in before 6 P.M., and the exhaustion of the asses—seventeen now remained—rendered a day’s halt necessary.

During the last two marches the Baloch had been, they declared, without grain; the sons of Ramji and the porters, more provident, had reserved a small store, moreover they managed to procure a sheep from the next station. On the morrow a party, headed by Muinyi Wazira, set out to forage among the mountain settlements, bearing no arms in token of peace. About noon they returned, and reported that at the sight of strangers the people had taken to flight, after informing the party that they were in the habit of putting to death all Murungwana or freemen found trespassing off the road; however, that on this occasion the lives of the strangers should be spared. But Ambari, a slave belonging to Said bin Salim, presently tattled the true tale. The gallant foragers had not dared to enter the village; when the war-cry flew from hamlet to hamlet, and all the Wasagara, even the women and children, seized their spears and stood to arms, they at once threw themselves into the jungle and descended the hill with such unseemly haste that most of them bore the wounds of thorns and stones. Two of Baloch, Riza and Belok, lit their matches and set out proudly to provide themselves by their prowess; they were derided by Kidogo: “Verily, O my brethren! ye go forth to meet men and not women!” and after a hundred yards’ walk they took second thoughts and returned. The Mukondokwa Mountains, once a garden, have become a field for fray and foray; cruelty and violence have brutalised the souls of the inhabitants, and they have learned, as several atrocities committed since our passage through the country prove, to wreak their vengeance upon all weaker than themselves.

On the 27th August we resumed our way under fresh difficulties. The last march had cost us another ass. Muhinna, a donkey-driver, complaining of fever, had been mounted by Kidogo without my permission, and had summarily departed, thus depriving us of the services of a second, whilst all were in a state of weakness which compelled them to walk at their slowest pace. On the other hand, the men of the caravan, hungry and suffering from raw south-east wind and the chilly cold, the result not of low temperature but of humidity and extensive evaporation, were for pushing forward as fast as possible. The path was painful, winding along the shoulders of stony and bushy hills, with rough re-entering angles, and sometimes dipping down into the valley of the Mukondokwa, which, hard on the right, spread out in swamps, nearly two miles broad, temporary where they depended upon rain, and permanent where their low levels admitted of free infiltration. On the steep eminences to the left of the path rose tall and thick the thorny aloetic and cactaceous growth of arid Somaliland; the other side was a miniature of the marine lagoons, the creeks, and the bayous of green Zanzibar. After three hours of hard marching, the labour came to its crisis, where the path, breaking off at a right angle from the river, wound up an insecure ladder of loose earth and stones, which caused several porters and one ass to lose their footing, and to roll with their loads through the thorny bushes of the steep slope, near the off side, into the bed of rushes below. Then leaving the river-valley on the right, we fell into a Fiumara of deep loose sand, about a hundred yards broad, and occupying the centre of a widening table-land. The view now changed, and the “wady” afforded pleasant glimpses of scenery. Its broad, smooth and glistening bed, dinted by the footprints of cattle, was bounded by low perpendicular banks of stiff red clay, margined by mighty masses of brilliant green tamarinds, calabashes, and sycomores, which stood sharply out against the yellow stubbles beyond them. The Mkuyu or sycomore in Eastern Africa is a magnificent tree; the bole, composed of a pillared mass, averages from eight to ten feet in height, and the huge branches, thatched with thick cool foliage, extend laterally, overshadowing a circle whose perimeter, when the sun is vertical, sometimes attains five hundred feet. The fruit, though eaten by travellers, is a poor berry, all rind and seeds, with a slender title to the name of fig. There are apparently two varieties of this tree, resembling each other in general appearance, but differing in details. The Mtamba has a large, heavy, and fleshy leaf; its fruit is not smooth like that of the Mkuyu, but knobbed with green excrescences, and the bole is loftier than the common sycomore’s trunk. The roots of the older trees, rising above the earth, draw up a quantity of mould which, when the wood is decayed or destroyed, forms the dwarf mounds that in many parts encumber the surface of the country. Traces of extensive cultivation—fields of bajri or panicum, the staple cereal which here supplants the normal African holcus, or Kafir corn, and plantations of luxuriant maize, of beans, of the vetch known as the voiandzeia subterranea, of tobacco, and other plants—showed that this district is beyond the reach of the coast-kidnappers. From the rising ground on the left hand we heard the loud tattoo of the drum. The Baloch, choosing to be alarmed, fired several shots, much to the annoyance of the irascible Kidogo, who had laid down as a law that waste of powder in this region was more likely to invite than to prevent an attack. As we ascended the Fiumara it narrowed rapidly, and its head was encumbered with heaps of boulders from which sprang a runnel of the sweetest water. The camping-ground was upon the left bank of the bed. The guide called it Ndábi, probably from a small gnarled tree here abundant, bearing a fruit like a pale red currant, which tastes like sweetened gum dissolved in dirty water. I lost no time in sending for provisions, which were scarce and dear. Bombay failed in procuring a sheep, though the Baloch, by paying six cloths, were more fortunate. One of Kidogo’s principles of action, in which he was abetted by Said bin Salim, was to prevent our buying provisions, however necessary, at high prices, fearing lest the tariff thus established might become an “ada,” a precedent or custom for future travellers, himself and others. We were, therefore, fain to content ourselves and our servants with a little bajri and two eggs.

After a day’s halt at Ndabi we resumed the journey on the 29th August. The path crossed a high and stony hill-shoulder, where the bleak raw air caused one of the porters to lie down torpid like a frozen man. It then stretched over gradually rising and falling ground to a dense bush of cactaceæ and milk-bush, aloetic plants and thorns, based upon a surface of brickdust-red. Beyond this point lay another plateau of wavy surface, producing dwarfed and wind-wrung calabashes, and showing grain-fields carefully and laboriously ridged with the hoe. Flocks and herds now appeared in all directions. The ground was in some places rust-coloured, in others dazzlingly white with a detritus of granite; mica glittered like silver-filings in the sun, and a fine silky grass waved in the wind, bleached clean of colour by the glowing rays. This plateau ended in a descent with rapid slopes, over falls and steps of rock and boulder into the basin of the Rumuma River. It is a southern influent, or a bifurcation of the Mukondokwa, and it drains the hills to the south-west of the Rumuma district, whereas the main stream, arising in the highlands of the Wahumba or Wamusai, carries off the waters of the lands on the west. Losing our way, we came upon this mountain-torrent, which swirls through blocks and boulders under stiff banks of red earth densely grown with brush and reeds; and to find the kraal we were obliged to travel up the bed-side, through well-hoed fields irrigated by raised water-courses. The khambi was badly situated in the dwarf hollow between the river and the hills, and having lately been tenanted, as the smoking embers showed, it was uncleanly in the extreme. It was heart-breaking to see the asses that day. I left them to Said bin Salim, who, with many others, did not appear till eventide.

Rumuma is a favourite resting-place with caravans, on account of the comparative abundance of its supplies. I halted here two whole days, to rest and feed the starving porters, and to repair the sacks, the pack-saddles, and the other appointments of the asses. Here, for the first time, the country people descended in crowds from the hills, bringing fowls, hauling along small but beautifully formed goats, lank sheep, and fine bullocks—the latter worth twelve cloths—and carrying on their heads basket-platters full of the Voandzeia, bajri, beans, and the Arachis Hypogæa. The latter is called by the Arabs Sumbul el Sibal, or “Monkey’s Spikenard;” on the coast, Njugu ya Nyassa; in Unyamwezi, Karanga or K’haranga, and further west, Mayowwa or Mwanza. It is the Bhuiphali, or “earth-fruit” of India, and the Bik’han of Maharatta land, where it is used by cheap confectioners in the place of almonds, whose taste it simulates. Our older Cape travellers term it the pig-nut. The plant extends itself along the surface of the ground, and puts forth its fruit at intervals below. It is sown before the rains, and ripens after six months,—in the interior about June. The Arabs fry it with cream that has been slightly salted, and employ it in a variety of rich dishes; it affords them also a favourite oil. The Africans use it principally on journeys. The price greatly varies according to the abundance of the article; when moderate, about two pounds may be purchased for a “khete” of coral beads.

The Wasagara of Rumuma are short, black, beardless men. They wear their hair combed off the forehead, and twisted into a fringe of little pig-tails, which extend to the nape of the neck. Few boast of cloth, the general body contenting themselves with a goat-skin flap somewhat like a cobbler’s apron tied over one shoulder, as we sling a game-bag. Their ornaments are zinc and brass earrings in rolls, which distend the ear-lobe, bangles, or armlets of similar metal, and iron chains with oblong links as anklets. Their arms are bows and arrows, assegais with long lanceated heads, and bull-hide shields, three feet long by one broad, painted black and red in perpendicular stripes. I was visited by their Sultan Njasa, a small grizzled old man, with eyes reddened by liquor, a wide mouth, a very thin beard, a sooty skin, and long straggling hair, “à la malcontent.” He was attired in an antiquated Barsati, or blue and red Indian cotton, tucked in at the waist, with another thrown over his shoulders, and his neck was decked with many strings of beads. He insisted upon making “sare” or brotherhood with Said bin Salim, who being forbidden by his law to taste blood, made the unconscientious Muinyi Wazira his proxy. The two brothers being seated on the ground opposite each other, with legs well to the fore, one man held over their heads a drawn sword, whilst another addressed to them alternately a little sermon, denouncing death or slavery as the penalty for proving false to the vow. Then each brother licked a little of the other’s blood, taken with the finger from a knife-cut above the heart, or rather where the heart is popularly supposed to be. The Sultan then presented to the Muinyi, in memoriam, a neat iron chain-anklet, and the Muinyi presented to the Sultan a little of our cloth.

The climate of Rumuma was new to me, after the incessant rains of the maritime valley, and the fogs and mists of the Rufuta Range. It was, however, in extremes. At night the thermometer, under the influence of dewy gusts, sank in the tent to 48° F., a killing temperature in these latitudes to half-naked and houseless men. During the day the mercury ranged between 80° and 90° F.; the sun was fiery, whilst a furious south wind coursed through skies purer and bluer than I had ever seen in Greece or Italy. At times, according to the people, the hill-tops are veiled, especially in the mornings and evenings, with thick nimbus, vapours, and spitting clouds, which sometimes extend to the plain, and discharge heavy showers that invariably cause sickness. Here my companion once more suffered from an attack of “liver,” brought on, he supposed, from over-devotion to a fat bullock’s hump. Two of the Wanyamwezi porters were seized with preliminary symptoms of small-pox, euphuistically termed by Said bin Salim “shurua,” or chicken-pox. Several of the slaves, including the charming Halimah, were laid up; the worst of all, however, was Valentine, who complained of an unceasing racking headache, whilst his puffed cheeks and dull-yellow skin gave him the look of one newly deceased. At length, divining his complaint, he was cupped by a Mnyamwezi porter, and he recovered after the operation strength and appetite.