Maroro, or Malolo, according to dialect, is the “Marorrer town” of Lt. Hardy, (Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society, from Sept. 1841 to May 1844,) who, in 1811-12, was dispatched with Capt. Smee by the Government of Bombay to collect information at Kilwa and its dependencies, and the East African coast generally. Mr. Cooley (Inner Africa Laid Open, p. 56) writes the word Marora, and explains it to mean “trade:” the people, however, ignore the derivation. It is not a town, but a district, containing as usual on this line a variety of little settlements. The confined basin is by no means a wholesome locality, the air is warm and “muggy,” the swamp vegetation is fetid, the mosquitos venomous, and the population, afflicted with fevers and severe ulceration, is not less wretched and degraded than the Wak’hutu. Their habitations are generally Tembe, but small and poor, and their fields are dotted with dwarf platforms for the guardians of the crops. Here a cow costs twelve cloths, a goat three, whilst two fowls are procurable for a shukkah. Maroro is the westernmost limit of the touters from the Mrima; there are seldom less than 150 muskets present, and the Wasagara have learned to hold strangers in horror.

In these basins caravans endeavour, and are forced by the people, to encamp upon the further end after marching through. At the end of a short stage of three hours we forded three times the river bed, a muddy bottom, flanked by stiff rushes, and encamped under a Mkamba tree, above and to windward of the fetid swamp. The night was hot and rainy, clouds of mosquitos rose from their homes below, and the cynhyænas were so numerous that it was necessary to frighten them away with shots. The labour of laying in provisions detained us for a day at Maroro.

On the 17th December we left the little basin by its southern opening, which gradually winds eastward. The march was delayed by the distribution of the load of a porter who had fled to the Warori. After crossing a fourth rise, the road fell into the cultivated valley of the Mwega River. This is a rush-girt stream of pure water, about 20 feet broad, and knee-deep at the fords in dry weather; its course is S.W. to the stream of Maroro. Like the Mukondokwa, it spreads out, except where dammed by the correspondence of the salient and the re-entering angles of the hill spurs. The road runs sometimes over this rocky and jungly ground, horrid with thorn and cactus, fording the stream, where there is no room for a path, and at other times it traverses lagoon-like backwaters, garnished with grass, rush, and stiff shrubs, based upon sun-cracked or miry beds. After a march of four hours we encamped in the Mwega Basin, where women brought down grain in baskets: cattle were seen upon the higher grounds, but the people refused to sell milk or meat.

The next stage was Kiperepeta; it occupied about 2 hours 30 min. The road was rough, traversing the bushy jungly spurs on the left bank of the rushy narrow stream; in many places there were steps and ladders of detached blocks and boulders. At last passing through a thick growth, where the smell of jasmine loads the air, we ascended a steep and rugged incline, whose summit commanded a fine back view of the Maroro Basin. A shelving counterslope of earth deeply cracked and cut with watercourses led us to the encamping-ground, a red patch dotted with tall calabashes, and boasting a few pools of brackish water. We had now entered the land of grass-kilts and beehive huts, built for defence upon the ridges of the hills: whilst cactus, aloe, and milk-bush showed the diminished fertility of the soil. About Kiperepeta it was said a gang of nearly 400 touters awaited with their muskets the arrival of caravans from the interior.

On the 19th December, leaving Kiperepeta, we toiled up a steep incline, cut by the sinuated channels of water-courses, to a col or pass, the water-parting of this line in Usagara: before south-westerly, the versant thence-forward trends to the south-east. Having topped the summit, we began the descent along the left bank of a mountain burn, the Rufita, which, forming in the rainy season a series of rapids and cascades, casts its waters into the Yovu, and eventually into the Rwaha River. The drainage of the hill-folds cuts, at every re-entering angle, a ragged irregular ditch, whose stony depths are impassable to heavily-laden asses. After a toilsome march of three hours, we fell into the basin of Kisanga, which, like others on this line, is an enlarged punchbowl, almost surrounded by a mass of green hills, cone rising upon cone, with tufted cappings of trees, and long lines of small haycock-huts ranged along the acclivities and ridge-lines. The floor of the basin is rough and uneven; a rich cultivation extends from the hill-slopes to the stream which drains the sole, and fine trees, amongst which are the mparamusi and the sycomore, relieve the uniformity of the well-hoed fields. Having passed through huts and villages, where two up-caravans of Wanyamwezi were halted, displaying and haggling over the cloths intended as tribute to the Sultan Kiringawana, we prudently forded the Yovu, and placed its bed between ourselves and the enemy. The Yovu, which bisects the basin of Kisanga from N. to S. and passes by the S.E. into the Rwaha, was then about four feet deep; it flowed down a muddy bed laced with roots, and its banks, whence a putrid smell exhaled, were thick lines of sedgy grass which sheltered myriads of mosquitos. Ascending an eminence to the left of the stream, we obtained lodgings, and at once proceeded to settle kuhonga with the chief, Kiringawana.

The father, or, according to others, the grandfather of the present chief, a Mnyamwezi of the ancient Wakalaganza tribe, first emigrated from his home in Usagozi, and, being a mighty elephant-hunter and a powerful wizard, he persuaded by arts and arms the Wasagara, who allowed him to settle amongst them, to constitute him their liege lord. The actual Kiringawana, having spent his heir-apparent days at Zanzibar, returned to Kisanga on the death of his sire, and reigned in his stead. His long residence among the Arabs has so far civilised him that he furnishes his several homes comfortably enough; he receives his tributary-visitors with ceremony, affects amenity of manner, clothes his short, stout, and sooty person in rainbow-coloured raiment, carries a Persian blade, and is a cunning diplomatist in the art of choosing cloth.

On the day of arrival I was visited by Msimbiri, the heir-apparent—kingly dignity prevented Kiringawana wading the Yovu,—who gave some information about the Rwaha river, and promised milk. The 20th of December was expended in the palaver about “dash.” After abundant chaffering, the chief accepted from the Expedition, though passing through his acres on the return-march, when presents are poor, three expensive coloured cloths, and eight shukkah of domestics and Kaniki; wondering the while that the wealthy Muzungu had neglected to reserve for him something more worthy of his acceptance. He returned a fat bullock, which was instantly shot and devoured. In their indolence the caravan-men again began to quarrel; and Wulaydi, a son of Ramji, speared a porter, an offence for which he was ordered, if he failed to give satisfaction for the assault, to be turned out of camp. A march was anticipated on the next day, when suddenly, as the moon rose over the walls of the basin, a fine bonfire on the neighbouring hill and a terrible outcry announced an accident in the village occupied by the sons of Ramji. Muinyi Buyuni had left in charge of the hearth the object of his affections, a fine strapping slave-girl, whom for certain reasons he expected to sell for a premium at Zanzibar, and she had made it over to some friend, who probably had fallen asleep. The hut was soon in flames,—in these lands fires are never extinguished,—and the conflagration had extended to the nearer hovels, consuming the cloth, grain, and furniture of the inmates. Fortunately, the humans and the cattle escaped; but a delay was inevitable. The elder who owned the chief hut demanded only eighty-eight cloths, one slave, thirteen Fundo of beads, and other minor articles:—a lesser sum would have purchased the whole household. His cupidity was restrained by Kiringawana, who named as indemnity thirty cloths, here worth thirty dollars, which I gave with extreme unwillingness, promising the sons of Ramji, who appeared rather to enjoy the excitement, that they should pay for their carelessness at Zanzibar.

During the second day’s halt, I attempted to obtain from Kiringawana a permission to depart from the beaten track. The noble descent of this chief gives him power over the guides of the Wanyamwezi caravans. In consequence of an agreement with the Diwans of the Mrima, he has lately closed the direct route to Kilwa, formerly regularly traversed, and he commands a little army of touters. He returned a gracious reply, which in East Africa, however, means no gracious intentions.

Resuming our march on the 22nd of December, we descended from the eminence into the basin of the Yovu River, and fought our way through a broad “Wady,” declining from east to west, with thick lines of tree and bush down the centre, and everywhere else an expanse of dark and unbroken green, like a plate of spinach. Passing along the southern bank amongst wild Annonas and fine Palmyras, over a good path where there was little mud, we presently ascended rising ground through an open forest, of the rainbow hues before described, where sweet air and soft filmy shade formed, whilst the sun was low and the breath of the morning was pure and good, most enjoyable travelling. After about five hours we descended into the basin of the Ruhembe rivulet, which seems to be the “Rohambi people” of Mr. Cooley’s Itinerary. (Geography of N’yassi, p. 22.) The inhabitants are Wasagara; they supply travellers with manioc, grain, and bitter egg-plants, of a scarlet colour resembling tomatos. Cultivation flourishes upon the hill-sides and in the swampy grounds about the sole of the basin, which is bisected by a muddy and apparently stagnant stream ten feet broad. We pitched tents in the open central space of a village, and met a caravan of Wasawahili from Zanzibar, who reported to Said bin Salim the gratifying intelligence that, in consequence of a rumour of his decease, his worthy brother, Ali bin Salim, had somewhat prematurely laid violent hands upon his goods and chattels.

The porters would have halted on the next day, but the excited Said exerted himself manfully; at 2 P.M. we were once more on the road. Descending from the village-eminence, we crossed in a blazing sun the fetid Ruhembe; and, after finding with some difficulty the jungly path, we struck into a pleasant forest, like that traversed on the last march. It was cut by water-courses draining south, and at these places it was necessary to dismount. At 6 P.M. appeared a clearing, with sundry villages and clumps of the Mgude tree, whose tufty summits of the brightest green, gilt by the last rays of the sun, formed a lovely picture. The porters would have rested at this spot, but they were forced forwards by the sons of Ramji. Presently we emerged upon the southern extremity of the Makata Plain, a hideous low level of black vegetable earth, peaty in appearance, and, bearing long puddles of dark scummy and stagnant rain-water, mere horse-ponds, with the additional qualities of miasma and mosquitos. The sons of Ramji had determined to reach the Makata Nullah, still distant about two hours. I called a halt in favour of the fatigued Pagazi, who heard it with pleasure, and sent to recall Wulaydi, Shehe, and Nasibu, who were acting bell-wethers. The worthies returned after a time, and revenged themselves by parading, with many grimaces, up and down the camp.

On the morning of the 24th of December, we resumed the transit of the Makata Plain, and crossed the tail of its nullah. It was here bone-dry; consequently, had we made it last night, the thirsty caravan would have suffered severely. Ensued a long slope garnished with the normal thin forest; in two places the plots of ashes, which denote the deaths of wizard and witch, apprised us that we were fast approaching benighted K’hutu. A skeleton caravan of touters, composed of six muskets and two flags, met us on the way. Presently we descended into the basin of Kikoboga, which was occupied in force by gentry of the same description. After wading four times the black, muddy, and rushy nullah, which bisects the lake, we crossed a lateral band of rough high ground, whence a further counter-slope bent down to a Khambi in a diminutive hollow, called Mwimbi. It was the ideal of a bad encamping ground. The kraal stood on the bank of a dark, miry water at the head of a narrow gap, where heat was concentrated by the funnel-shaped hill-sides, and where the dark ground, strewed with rotting grass and leaves, harboured hosts of cock-roaches, beetles, and mosquitos. The supplies, a little grain, poor sugar-cane, good wild vegetables, at times plantains, were distant, and the water was vile. Throughout this country, however, the Wasagara cultivators, fearing plunder should a caravan encamp near their crops, muster in force; the traveller, therefore, must not unpack except at the kraals on either edge of the cultivation.

The dawn of Christmas Day, 1858, saw us toiling along the Kikoboga River, which we forded four times. We then crossed two deep affluents, whose banks were thick with fruitless plantains. The road presently turned up a rough rise, from whose crest began the descent of the Mabruki Pass. This col may be divided into two steps: the first winds along a sharp ridge-line, a chain of well-forested hills, whose heights, bordered on both sides by precipitous slopes of earth overgrown with thorns and thick bamboo-clumps, command an extensive view of spur and subrange, of dhun and champaign, sprinkled with villages and dwarf cones, and watered by streamlets that glisten like lines of quicksilver in the blue-brown of the hazy distant landscape. Ensues, after a succession of deep and rugged watercourses, with difficult slopes, the second step; a short but sharp steep of red earth, corded with the tree-roots that have been bared by the heavy rains. Beyond this the path, spanning rough ground at the hill-base, debouches upon the course of a streamlet flowing southwards from the last heights of Usagara to the plains of Uziraha in K’hutu.

The bullock reserved for the occasion having been lost in Uhehe, I had ordered the purchase of half a dozen goats wherewith to celebrate the day; the porters, however, were too lazy to collect them. My companion and I made good cheer upon a fat capon, which acted as roast-beef, and a mess of ground-nuts sweetened with sugar-cane, which did duty as plum-pudding. The contrast of what was with what might be now, however, suggested only pleasurable sensations; long odds were in favour of our seeing the Christmas Day of 1859, compared with the chances of things at Msene on the Christmas Day of 1857.

From Uziraha sixteen hours distributed into fourteen marches conducted us from Uziraha, at the foot of the Usagara mountains, to Central Zungomero. The districts traversed were Eastern Mbwiga, Marundwe, and Kirengwe. The road again realises the European idea of Africa in its most hideous and grotesque aspect. Animals are scarce amidst the portentous growth of herbage, not a head of black cattle is seen, flocks and poultry are rare, and even the beasts of the field seem to flee the land. The people admitted us into their villages, whose wretched straw-hovels, contrasting with the luxuriant jungle which hems them in, look like birds’ nests torn from the trees: all the best settlements, however, were occupied by parties of touters. At the sight of our passing caravan the goatherd hurried off his charge, the peasant prepared to rush into the grass, the women and children slunk and hid within the hut, and no one ever left his home without a bow and a sheath of arrows, whose pitchy-coloured bark-necks denoted a fresh layer of poison.

We entered Zungomero on the 29th of December, after sighting on the left the cone at whose base rises the Maji ya W’heta, or Fontaine qui bouille. The village on the left bank of the Mgeta, which we had occupied about eighteen months before, had long been level with the ground; we were therefore conducted with due ceremony into another settlement on the right of the stream. An army of black musketeers, in scanty but various and gaudy attire, came out to meet us, and with the usual shots and shouts conducted us to the headman’s house, which had already been turned into a kind of barrack by these irregulars. They then stared as usual for half-a-dozen consecutive hours, which done they retired to rest.

After a day’s repose, sending for the Kirangozi, and personally offering a liberal reward, I opened to him the subject then nearest my heart, namely, a march upon Kilwa. This proceeding probably irritated the too susceptible Said bin Salim, and caused him, if not actually to interfere, at any rate to withhold all aid towards furthering the project. Twanigana, after a palaver with his people, returned with a reply that he himself was willing, but that his men would not leave the direct track. Their reasons were various. Some had become brothers with the sons of Ramji, and expected employment from their “father.” Others declared that it would be necessary to march a few miles back, which was contrary to their custom, and said that they ought to have been warned of the intention before passing the Makutaniro, or junction of the two roads. But none expressed any fear, as has since been asserted, of being sold off into slavery at Kilwa. Such a declaration would have been ridiculous. Of the many Wanyamwezi caravans that have visited Kilwa none has ever yet been seized and sold; the coast-people are too well acquainted with their own interests to secure for themselves a permanent bad name. Seeing, however, that energetic measures were necessary to open the road, I allowed them two days for consideration, and warned them that after that time Posho or rations should be withdrawn.

On the next day I was privately informed by the Mnfumo or parson of the caravan, that his comrades intended to make a feint of desertion, and then to return, if they found us resolved not to follow them. The reverend gentleman’s sister-in-law, who had accompanied us from Unyamwezi as cook and concubine to Seedy Bombay, persuaded our managing man that there was no danger of the porters traversing Uzaramo, without pay, escort, or provisions. On the 1st January, 1859, however, the gang rose to depart. I sent for the Kirangozi, who declared that though loth to leave us he must head his men: in return for which semi-fidelity I made him name his own reward; he asked two handsome cloths, a Gorah or piece of domestics, and one Fundo of coral beads—it was double his pay, but I willingly gave it, and directed Said bin Salim to write an order to that effect upon Mr. Rush Ramji, or any other Hindu who might happen to be at Kaole. But I rejected the suggestion of my companion, who proposed that half the sum agreed upon in Unyanyembe as payment to the porters—nine cloths each—should be given to them. In the first place, this donation would have been equivalent to a final dismissal. Secondly, the Arabs at Kazeh had warned me that it was not their custom to pay in part those who will not complete the journey to the coast; and I could see no reason for departing from a commercial precedent, evidently necessary to curb the Africans’ alacrity in desertion.

On the day following the departure of the gang I set out to visit the Jetting Spring, and found when returning to the village shortly before noon that my companion had sent a man to recal the “Pagazi,” who were said to be encamped close to the river, and to propose to them a march upon Mbuamaji. The messenger returned and reported that the Wanyamwezi had already crossed the river. Unwilling that the wretches should lose by their headstrongness, I at once ordered Said bin Salim to mount ass and to bring back the porters by offers which they would have accepted. Some time afterwards, when I fancied that he was probably haranguing the men, he came to me to say that he had not eaten and the sun was hot. With the view of shaming him I directed Kidogo to do the work, but as he also made excuses, Khamisi and Shehe, two sons of Ramji, were despatched with cloths to buy rations for the Pagazi, and, coûte que coûte, to bring them back. They set out on the 2nd January, and returned on the 7th January, never having, according to their own account, seen the fugitives.

This was a regrettable occurrence: it gave a handle to private malice under the specious semblance of public duty. But such events are common on the slave-path in Eastern Africa; of the seven gangs of porters engaged on this journey only one, an unusually small proportion, left me without being fully satisfied, and that one deserved to be disappointed.

We were detained at K’hutu till the 20th January. The airiest of schemes were ventilated by Said bin Salim and my companion. Three of the Baloch eye-sores, the “Graybeard Mohammed,” the mischief-maker Khudabakhsh, and the mulatto Jelai, were sent to the coast with letters, reports, and officials for Zanzibar and home. The projectors then attempted to engage Wak’hutu porters, but after a long palaver, P’hazi Madenge, the principal chief of Uziraha, who at first undertook to transport us in person to Dut’humi, declared that he could not assist us. It was then proposed to trust for porterage to the Wazaramo; that project also necessarily fell to the ground. Two feasible plans remained: either to write to the coast for a new gang, or to await the transit of some down-caravan. As the former would have caused an inevitable delay I preferred the latter, justly thinking that during this, the travelling-season, we should not long be detained.

On the 11th January, 1859, a large party of Wanyanwezi, journeying from the interior to the coast, bivouacked in the village. I easily persuaded Muhembe, the Mtongi or leader, to make over to me the services of nine of his men, and lest the African mind might conceive that in dismissing the last gang cloth or beads had been an object, I issued to these new porters seventy-two cloths, as much as if they had carried packs from Unyanwezi to the coast. On the 14th January, 1859, we received Mr. Apothecary Frost’s letters, drugs, and medical comforts, for which we had written to him in July 1857. The next day saw us fording the warm muddy waters of the Mgeta, which was then 100 feet broad: usually knee-deep, it rises after a few showers to the breast, and during the heavy rains which had lately fallen it was impassable. We found a little village on the left bank, and there we sat down patiently to await, despite the trouble inflicted by a host of diminutive ants, who knew no rest by day or night, the arrival of another caravan to complete our gang. The medical comforts so tardily received from Zanzibar fortified us, however, to some extent against enemies and inconveniences; we had æther-sherbet and æther-lemonade, formed by combining a wine-glass of the spirit with a quant. suff. of citric acid; and when we wanted a change the villagers supplied an abundance of Pombe or small beer.

On the 17th Jan. a numerous down-caravan entered the settlement which we occupied, and it proved after inquiry to be one of which I had heard often and much. The chiefs, Sulayman bin Rashid el Riami, a coast-Arab, accompanied by a Msawahili, Mohammed bin Gharib, and others, called upon me without delay, and from them I obtained a detailed account of their interesting travel.

The merchants had left the coast for Ubena in June, 1857, and their up-march had lasted six months. They set out with a total of 600 free men and slaves, armed with 150 guns, hired on the seaboard for eight to ten dollars per head, half being advanced: they could not persuade the Wanyamwezi to traverse these regions. The caravan followed the Mbuamaji trunk-road westward as far as Maroro in Usagara, thence deflecting southwards it crossed the Rwaha River, which at the ford was knee-deep. The party travelled through the Wahehe and the Wafaji, south of and far from the stream, to avoid the Warori, who hold both banks. The sultan of these freebooters, being at war with the Wabena, would not have permitted merchants to pass on to his enemies, and even in time of peace he fines them, it is said, one half of their property for safe-conduct. On the right hand of the caravan, or to the south from Uhehe to Ubena, was a continuous chain of highlands, pouring affluents across the road into the Rwaha River, and water was procurable only in the beds of these nullahs and fiumaras. If this chain be of any considerable length, it may represent the water-parting between the Tanganyika and the Nyassa Lakes, and thus divide by another and a southerly lateral band the great Depression of Central Africa. The land was dry and barren; in fact, Ugogo without its calabashes. Scarcely a blade of grass appeared upon the whity-brown soil, and the travellers marvelled how the numerous herds obtained their sustenance. The masika or rainy monsoon began synchronously with that of Unyamwezi, but it lasted little more than half its period in the north. In the sparse cultivation, surrounded by dense bush, they were rarely able to ration oftener than once a week. They were hospitably received by Kimanu, the Jyari or Sultan of Ubena. His people, though fierce and savage, appeared pleased by the sight of strangers. The Wabena wore a profusion of beads, and resembled in dress, diet, and lodging the Warori; they were brave to recklessness, and strictly monarchical, swearing by their chief. The Warori, however, were the cleaner race; they washed and bathed, whilst the Wabena used the same fluid to purify teeth, face, and hands.

At Ubena the caravan made considerable profits in slaves and ivory. The former, mostly captured or kidnapped, were sold for four to six fundo of beads, and, merchants being rare, a large stock was found on hand. About 800 were purchased, as each Pagazi or porter could afford one at least. On the return-march, however, half of the property deserted. The ivory, which rather resembled the valuable article procured at Karagwah than the poor produce of Unyanyembe, sold at 35 to 70 fundo of yellow and other coloured beads per frasilah of 35 lbs. Cloth was generally refused, and the kitindi or wire armlets were useful only in purchasing provisions.

On its return the caravan, following for eighteen stages the right bank of the Rwaha River, met with an unexpected misfortune. They were nighting in a broad fiumara called Bonye, a tributary from the southern highlands to the main artery, when suddenly a roar and rush of waters fast approaching and the cries of men struck them with consternation. In the confusion which ensued 150 souls, for the most part slaves, and probably ironed or corded together, were carried away by the torrent, and the porters lost a great part of the ivory. A more dangerous place for encampment can scarcely be imagined, yet the East African everywhere prefers it because it is warm at night, and the surface is soft. In the neighbourhood of the Rwaha they entered the capital district of Mui’ Gumbi, the chief, after a rude reception on the frontier, where the people, mistaking them for a plundering party of Wabena, gathered in arms to the number of 4000. When the error was perceived, the Warori warmly welcomed the traders, calling them brothers, and led them to the quarters of their Sultan. Mui’ Gumbi was apparently in his 70th year, a man of venerable look, tall, burly, and light-coloured, with large ears, and a hooked nose like a “moghrebi.” His sons, about thirty in number, all resembled him, their comeliness contrasting strongly with the common clansmen, who are considered by their chiefs as slaves. A tradition derives the origin of this royal race from Madagascar or one of its adjoining islets. Mui’ Gumbi wore a profusion of beads, many of them antiquated in form and colour, and now unknown in the market of Zanzibar: above his left elbow he had a lumpy bracelet of ivory, a decoration appropriated to chieftains. The Warori expressed their surprise that the country had not been lately visited by caravans, and, to encourage others, the Sultan offered large gangs of porters without pay to his visitors. These men never desert; such disobedience would cost them their lives. From the settlement of Mui’ Gumbi to the coast the caravan travelled without accident, but under great hardships, living on roots and grasses for want of means to buy provisions.

The same caravan-traders showed me divers specimens of the Warori, and gave me the following description, which tallied with the details supplied by Snay bin Amin and the Arabs of Kazeh.

The Warori extend from the western frontier of the Wahehe, about forty marches along principally the northern bank of the Rwaha River, to the meridian of Eastern Unyanyembe. They are a semi-pastoral tribe, continually at war with their neighbours. They never sell their own people, but attack the Wabena, the Wakimbu, the Wahehe, the Wakonongo, and the races about Unyangwira, and drive their captives to the sea, or dispose of them to the slavers in Usagara. The price is of course cheap; a male adult is worth from two to six shukkah merkani. Some years ago a large plundering party, under their chief Mbangera, attacked Sultan Kalala of the Wasukuma; they were, however, defeated, with the loss of their leader, by Kafrira of Kivira, the son-in-law of Kalala. They also ravaged Unyanyembe, and compelled the people to take refuge on the summit of a natural rock-fortress between Kazeh and Yombo, and they have more than once menaced the dominions of Fundikira. Those mighty boasters the Wagogo hold the Warori in awe; as the Arabs say, they shrink small as a cubit before foes fiercer than themselves. The Warori have wasted the lands of Uhehe and Unyangwira, and have dispersed the Wakimbu and the Wamia tribes. They have closed the main-road from the seaboard by exorbitant blackmail and charges for water, and about five years ago they murdered two coast Arab traders from Mbuamaji. Since their late defeat by the Watuta, they have been comparatively quiet. When the E. African Expedition, however, entered the country they had just distinguished themselves by driving the herds from Ugogi, and thus prevented any entrance into their country from that district. Like the pastoral races generally of this portion of the peninsula, the object of their raids is cattle: when a herd falls into their hands, they fly at the beasts like hyænas, pierce them with their assegais, hack off huge slices, and devour the meat raw.

The Warori are small and shrivelled black savages. Their diminutive size is doubtless the effect of scanty food, continued through many generations: the Sultans, however, are a peculiarly fine large race of men. The slave-specimens observed had no distinguishing mark on the teeth; in all cases, however, two short lines were tattooed across the hollow of the temples. The male dress is a cloak of strung beads, weighing ten or twelve pounds, and covering the shoulders like a European cape. Some wind a large girdle of the same material round the waist. The women wear a bead-kilt extending to the knees, or, if unable to afford it, a wrapper of skin. The favourite weapon is a light, thin, and pliable assegai; they carry a sheath of about a dozen, and throw them with great force and accuracy. The bow is unknown. They usually press to close quarters, each man armed with a long heavy spear. Iron is procured in considerable quantities both in Ubena and Urori. The habitations are said to be large Tembe, capable of containing 400 to 500 souls. The principal articles of diet are milk, meat, and especially fattened dog’s flesh—of which the chiefs are inordinately fond,—maize, holcus, and millet. Rice is not grown in these arid districts. They manage their intoxication by means of pombe made of grain and the bhang, which is smoked in gourd-pipes; they also mix the cannabis with their vegetable food. The Warori are celebrated for power of abstinence; they will march, it is said, six days without eating, and they require to drink but once in the twenty-four hours. In one point they resemble the Bedouins of Arabia: the chief will entertain his guests hospitably as long as they remain in his village, but he will plunder them the moment they leave it.

On the 19th January the expected down-caravan of Wanyamwezi arrived, and I found no difficulty in completing our carriage—a fair proof, be it remarked, that I had not lost the confidence of the people. The Mtongi, however, was, or perhaps pretended to be, ill; we were, therefore, delayed for another day in a place which had no charms for us.

The 21st January enabled us to bid adieu to Zungomero and merrily to take the footpath way. We made Konduchi on the 3rd February, after twelve marches, which were accomplished in fifteen days. There was little of interest or adventure in this return-line, of which the nine first stations had already been visited and described. As the Yegea mud, near Dut’humi, was throat-deep, we crossed it lower down: it was still a weary trudge of several miles through thick slabby mire, which admitted a man to his knees. In places, after toiling under a sickly sun, we crept under the tunnels of thick jungle-growth veiling the Mgazi and other streams; the dank and fetid cold caused a deadly sensation of faintness, which was only relieved by a glass of æther-sherbet, a pipe or two of the strongest tobacco, and half an hour’s repose. By degrees it was found necessary to abandon the greater part of the remaining outfit and the luggage: the Wanyamwezi, as they neared their destination, became even less manageable than before, and the sons of Ramji now seemed to consider their toils at an end. On the 25th January we forded the cold, strong, yellow stream of the Mgeta, whose sandy bed had engulfed my elephant-gun, and we entered with steady hearts the formerly dreaded Uzaramo. The 27th January saw us pass safely by the village where M. Maizan came to an untimely end. On that day Ramazan and Salman, children of Said bin Salim, returned from Zanzibar Island, bringing letters, clothing, and provisions for their master, who, by way of small revenge, had despatched them secretly from Zungomero. On the 28th January we reached the Makutaniro or anastomosis of the Kaole and Mbuamaji roads, where on our ingress the Wazaramo had barred passage in force. No one now ventured to dispute the way with well-armed paupers. That evening, however, the Mtongi indulged his men with “maneno,” a harangue. Reports about fatal skirmishes between the Wazaramo and a caravan of Wanyamwezi that had preceded us had flown about the camp; consequently the Mtongi recommended prudence. “There would be danger to-morrow—a place of ambuscade—the porters must not rise and be off too early nor too late—they must not hasten on, nor lag behind—they had with them Wazungu, and in case of accidents they would lose their name!” The last sentence was frequently repeated with ever increasing emphasis, and each period of the discourse was marked by a general murmur, denoting attention.

As I have said, there was no danger. Yet on the next day a report arose that we were to be attacked in a dense thicket—where no archer, be it observed, could bend his bow—a little beyond the junction of the Mbuamaji road with that of Konduchi, our destination. In the afternoon Said bin Salim, with important countenance, entered my tent and disclosed to me the doleful tidings. The road was cut off. He knew it. A great friend of his—a slave—had told him so. He remembered warning me that such was the case five days ago. I must either delay till an escort could be summoned from the coast, or—I must fee a chief to precede me and to reason with the enemy. It was in vain to storm, I feared that real obstacles might be placed by the timid and wily little man in our way, and I consented most unwillingly to pay two coloured cloths, and one ditto of blue-cotton, as hire to guard that appeared in the shape of four clothless varlets, that left us after the first quarter of an hour. The Baloch, headed by the Jemadar, knowing that all was safe, distinguished themselves on that night, for the first time in eighteen months, by uttering the shouts which prove that the Oriental soldier is doing “Zam,” i.e. is on the qui vive. When requested not to make so much noise they grumbled that it was for our sake, not for theirs.

On the 30th January our natives of Zanzibar screamed with delight at the sight of the mango-tree, and pointed out to one another, as they appeared in succession, the old familiar fruits, jacks and pine-apples, limes and cocoes. On the 2nd February we greeted, with doffed caps and with three times three and one more, as Britons will do on such occasions, the kindly smiling face of our father Neptune as he lay basking in the sunbeams between earth and air. Finally, the 3rd February 1859 saw us winding through the poles decorated with skulls—they now grin in the Royal College of Surgeons, London—a negro Temple-bar which pointed out the way into the little maritime village of Konduchi.

Our entrance was attended with the usual ceremony, now familiar to the reader: the warmen danced, shot, and shouted, a rabble of adults, youths, and boys crowded upon us, the fair sex lulliloo’d with vigour, and a general procession conducted their strangers to the hut swept, cleaned, and garnished for us by old Premji, the principal Banyan of the head-quarter village, and there stared and laughed till they could stare and laugh no more.

On the evening of the same day an opportunity offered of transferring the Jemadar, the Baloch, and my bête noire, Kidogo, to their homes in Zanzibar Island, which lies within sight of Konduchi: as may be imagined, I readily availed myself of it. After begging powder and et cæteras to the last, the monocular insisted upon kissing my hand, and departed weeping bitterly with the agony of parting. By the same boat I sent a few lines to H. M. consul, Zanzibar, enclosing a list of necessaries, and requesting that a Battela, or coasting-craft, might be hired, provisioned, and despatched without delay, as I purposed to explore the Delta and the unknown course of the Rufiji River. In due time Said bin Salim and his “children,” including the fair Halimah and Zawada—the latter was liberally rewarded by me for services rendered to my companion—and shortly afterwards the sons of Ramji, or rather the few who had not deserted or lagged behind, were returned to their master, and were, I doubt not, received with all the kindness which their bad conduct deserved.

We were detained at Konduchi for six days between the 3rd and 10th February. There is nothing interesting in this little African village port: instead of describing it, I will enter into a few details concerning African matters of more general importance.