The river; we wade through the clear stream, arrive on
the other side, emerge out of the brake, and the gardens of the
Wajiji are around us - a perfect marvel of vegetable wealth.
Details escape my hasty and partial observation. I am almost
overpowered with my own emotions. I notice the graceful palms,
neat plots, green with vegetable plants, and small villages
surrounded with frail fences of the matete-cane.
We push on rapidly, lest the news of our coming might reach the
people of Ujiji before we come in sight, and are ready for them.
We halt at a little brook, then ascend the long slope of a naked
ridge, the very last of the myriads we have crossed. This alone
prevents us from seeing the lake in all its vastness. We arrive
at the summit, travel across and arrive at its western rim, and -
pause, reader - the port of Ujiji is below us, embowered in the
palms, only five hundred yards from us!
At this grand moment we do not think of the hundreds of miles we
have marched, or of the hundreds of hills that we have ascended
and descended, or of the many forests we have traversed, or of the
jungles and thickets that annoyed us, or of the fervid salt plains
that blistered our feet, or of the hot suns that scorched us, nor
of the dangers and difficulties, now happily surmounted!
