Frequent, and we were buoyed up
with the hope that before long we should meet game.
Benta was well supplied with Indian corn and a grain which the
natives called choroko, which I take to be vetches. I purchased
a large supply of choroko for my own personal use, as I found it
to be a most healthy food. The corn was stored on the flat roofs
of the tembes in huge boxes made out of the bark of the mtundu-tree.
The largest box I have ever seen in Africa was seen here. It might
be taken for a Titan's hat-box; it was seven feet in diameter, and
ten feet in height.
On the 29th, after travelling in a S.W. by S. direction, we
reached Kikuru. The march lasted for five hours over sun-cracked
plains, growing the black jack, and ebony, and dwarf shrubs, above
which numerous ant-hills of light chalky-coloured earth appeared
like sand dunes.
The mukunguru, a Kisawahili term for fever, is frequent in this
region of extensive forests and flat plains, owing to the imperfect
drainage provided by nature for them. In the dry season there
is nothing very offensive in the view of the country. The burnt
grass gives rather a sombre aspect to the country, covered with
the hard-baked tracks of animals which haunt these plains during
the latter part of the rainy season.
