The people grow sweet
potatoes, manioc - out of which tapioca is made - beans, and the
holcus. Not one chicken could be purchased for love or money,
and, besides grain, only a lean, scraggy specimen of a goat, a
long time ago imported form Uvinza, was procurable.
October the 25th will be remembered by me as a day of great troubles;
in fact, a series of troubles began from this date. We struck an
easterly road in order to obtain a passage to the lofty plateau which
bounded the valley of Imrera on the west and on the north. We camped,
after a two and a half hours' march, at its foot. The defile promised
a feasible means of ascent to the summit of the plateau, which rose
upward in a series of scarps a thousand feet above the valley of
Imrera.
While ascending that lofty arc of mountains which bounded westerly
and northerly the basin of Imrera, extensive prospects southward and
eastward were revealed. The character of the scenery at Ukawendi is
always animated and picturesque, but never sublime. The folds of this
ridge contained several ruins of bomas, which seemed to have been
erected during war time.
The mbemba fruit was plentiful along this march, and every few minutes
I could see from the rear one or two men hastening to secure a treasure
of it which they discovered on the ground.
A little before reaching the camp I had a shot at a leopard, but
failed to bring him down as he bounded away. At night the lions
roared as at the Mtambu River.
A lengthy march under the deep twilight shadows of a great forest,
which protected us from the hot sunbeams, brought us, on the next
day, to a camp newly constructed by a party of Arabs from Ujiji, who
had advanced thus far on their road to Unyanyembe, but, alarmed at
the reports of the war between Mirambo and the Arabs, had
returned. Our route was along the right bank of the Rugufu, a
broad sluggish stream, well choked with the matete reeds and the
papyrus. The tracks and the bois de vaches of buffaloes were
numerous, and there were several indications of rhinoceros being
near. In a deep clump of timber near this river we discovered a
colony of bearded and leonine-looking monkeys.
As we were about leaving our camp on the morning of the 28th a herd
of buffalo walked deliberately into view. Silence was quickly
restored, but not before the animals, to their great surprise, had
discovered the danger which confronted them. We commenced stalking
them, but we soon heard the thundering sound of their gallop,
after which it becomes a useless task to follow them, with a long
march in a wilderness before one.
