Your Brother Is Acquainted With The Wasungu (White Men), And Knows That What They Promise They Make Good.

Get me a hundred and forty pagazis and I will pay you your price." With unctuous courtesy, the reptile I was now warmly nourishing; said, "I do not want anything from you, my friend, for such a slight service, rest content and quiet; you shall not stop here fifteen days.

To-morrow morning I will come and overhaul your bales to see what is needed." I bade him good morning, elated with the happy thought that I was soon to tread the Unyanyembe road.

The reader must be made acquainted with two good and sufficient reasons why I was to devote all my energy to lead the Expedition as quickly as possible from Bagamoyo.

First, I wished to reach Ujiji before the news reached Livingstone that I was in search of him, for my impression of him was that he was a man who would try to put as much distance as possible between us, rather than make an effort to shorten it, and I should have my long journey for nothing.

Second, the Masika, or rainy season, would soon be on me, which, if it caught me at Bagamoyo, would prevent my departure until it was over, which meant a delay of forty days, and exaggerated as the rains were by all men with whom I came in contact, it rained every day for forty days without intermission. This I knew was a thing to dread; for I had my memory stored with all kinds of rainy unpleasantnesses. For instance, there was the rain of Virginia and its concomitant horrors - wetness, mildew, agues, rheumatics, and such like; then there were the English rains, a miserable drizzle causing the blue devils; then the rainy season of Abyssinia with the flood-gates of the firmament opened, and an universal down-pour of rain, enough to submerge half a continent in a few hours; lastly, there was the pelting monsoon of India, a steady shut-in-house kind of rain. To which of these rains should I compare this dreadful Masika of East Africa? Did not Burton write much about black mud in Uzaramo? Well, a country whose surface soil is called black mud in fine weather, what can it be called when forty days' rain beat on it, and feet of pagazis and donkeys make paste of it? These were natural reflections, induced by the circumstances of the hour, and I found myself much exercised in mind in consequence.

Ali bin Salim, true to his promise, visited my camp on the morrow, with a very important air, and after looking at the pile of cloth bales, informed me that I must have them covered with mat-bags. He said he would send a man to have them measured, but he enjoined me not to make any bargain for the bags, as he would make it all right.

While awaiting with commendable patience the 140 pagazis promised by Ali bin Salim we were all employed upon everything that thought could suggest needful for crossing the sickly maritime region, so that we might make the transit before the terrible fever could unnerve us, and make us joyless.

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