Proceeding Thence
Across Fields Delightfully Checkered With Fine Calabash And Fig
Trees, We Marched, Carrying Water Through Thorny Jungles, Until
Dark, When We Bivouacked For The Night, Only To Rest And Push On
Again Next Morning, Arriving At Marenga Mkhali (The Saline Water)
To Breakfast.
Here a good view of the Usagara hills is obtained.
Carrying water with us, we next marched half-way to the first
settlement of Ugogo, and bivouacked again, to eat the last of our
store of Mbumi grain.
At length the greater famine lands had been spanned; but we were
not in lands of plenty - for the Wagogo we found, like their
neighbours Wasagara, eating the seed of the calabash, to save
their small stores of grain.
The East Coast Range having been passed, no more hills had to be
crossed, for the land we next entered on is a plateau of rolling
ground, sloping southward to the Ruaha river, which forms a great
drain running from west to east, carrying off all the rainwaters
that fall in its neighbourhood through the East Coast Range to
the sea. To the northward can be seen some low hills, which are
occupied by Wahumba, a subtribe of the warlike Masai; and on the
west is the large forest-wilderness of Mgunda Mkhali. Ugogo,
lying under the lee side of the Usagara hills, is comparatively
sterile. Small outcrops of granite here and there poke through
the surface, which, like the rest of the rolling land, being
covered with bush, principally acacias, have a pleasing
appearance after the rains have set in, but are too brown and
desert-looking during the rest of the year.
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