When The Sun Shone It Appeared But A Pale Image Of Itself, And Old Pagazis, Wise In Their Traditions As Old Whaling Captains, Shook Their Heads Ominously At The Dull Spectre, And Declared It Was Doubtful If The Rain Would Cease For Three Weeks Yet.

The site of the caravan camp on the hither side of the Ungerengeri was a hot-bed of malaria, unpleasant to witness - an abomination to memory.

The filth of generations of pagazis had gathered innumerable hosts of creeping things. Armies of black, white, and red ants infest the stricken soil; centipedes, like worms, of every hue, clamber over shrubs and plants; hanging to the undergrowth are the honey-combed nests of yellow-headed wasps with stings as harmful as scorpions; enormous beetles, as large as full-grown mice, roll dunghills over the ground; of all sorts, shapes, sizes, and hues are the myriad-fold vermin with which the ground teems; in short, the richest entomological collection could not vie in variety and numbers with the species which the four walls of my tent enclosed from morning until night.

On the fifth morning, or the 23rd April, the rain gave us a few hours' respite, during which we managed to wade through the Stygian quagmire reeking with noisomeness to the inundated river-bank. The soldiers commenced at 5 A.M. to convey the baggage across from bank to bank over a bridge which was the most rustic of the rustic kind. Only an ignorant African would have been satisfied with its small utility as a means to cross a deep and rapid body of water.

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