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.
