We rested four days at this pleasant spot, to recruit ourselves,
and to allow the sick and feeble time to recover a little before
testing their ability in the ascent of the Usagara mountains.
The 8th of May saw us with our terribly jaded men and animals
winding up the steep slopes of the first line of hills; gaining
the summit of which we obtained a view remarkably grand, which
exhibited as in a master picture the broad valley of the Makata,
with its swift streams like so many cords of silver, as the
sunshine played on the unshadowed reaches of water, with its
thousands of graceful palms adding not a little to the charm of the
scene, with the great wall of the Uruguru and Uswapanga mountains
dimly blue, but sublime in their loftiness and immensity - forming a
fit background to such an extensive, far-embracing prospect.
Turning our faces west, we found ourselves in a mountain world,
fold rising above fold, peak behind peak, cone jostling cone; away
to the north, to the west, to the south, the mountain tops rolled
like so many vitrified waves; not one adust or arid spot was
visible in all this scene. The diorama had no sudden changes or
striking contrasts, for a universal forest of green trees clothed
every peak, cone, and summit.
