The Sight Was Such A Damper To My Regard For It As An Experiment, That The Cart Was Wheeled Into The Depths Of The Tall Reeds, And There Left.

The central figure was Shaw himself, riding at a gait which seemed to leave it doubtful on my mind whether he or his animal felt most sleepy.

Upon expostulating with him for keeping the caravan so long waiting when there was a march on hand, in a most peculiar voice - which he always assumed when disposed to be ugly-tempered - he said he had done the best he could; but as I had seen the solemn pace at which he rode, I felt dubious about his best endeavours; and of course there was a little scene, but the young European mtongi of an East African expedition must needs sup with the fellows he has chosen.

We arrived at Madete at 4 P.M., minus two donkeys, which had stretched their weary limbs in death. We had crossed the Mukondokwa about 3 P.M., and after taking its bearings and course, I made sure that its rise took place near a group of mountains about forty miles north by west of Nguru Peak. Our road led W.N.W., and at this place finally diverged from the river.

On the 14th, after a march of seven miles over hills whose sandstone and granite formation cropped visibly here and there above the surface, whose stony and dry aspect seemed reflected in every bush and plant, and having gained an altitude of about eight hundred feet above the flow of the Mukondokwa, we sighted the Lake of Ugombo - a grey sheet of water lying directly at the foot of the hill, from whose summit we gazed at the scene. The view was neither beautiful nor pretty, but what I should call refreshing; it afforded a pleasant relief to the eyes fatigued from dwelling on the bleak country around. Besides, the immediate neighbourhood of the lake was too tame to call forth any enthusiasm; there were no grandly swelling mountains, no smiling landscapes - nothing but a dun-brown peak, about one thousand feet high above the surface of the lake at its western extremity, from which the lake derived its name, Ugombo; nothing but a low dun-brown irregular range, running parallel with its northern shore at the distance of a mile; nothing but a low plain stretching from its western shore far away towards the Mpwapwa Mountains and Marenga Mkali, then apparent to us from our coign of vantage, from which extensive scene of dun-brownness we were glad to rest our eyes on the quiet grey water beneath.

Descending from the summit of the range, which bounded the lake east for about four hundred feet, we travelled along the northern shore. The time occupied in the journey from the eastern to the western extremity was exactly one hour and thirty minutes.

As this side represents its greatest length I conclude that the lake is three miles long by two miles greatest breadth. The immediate shores of the lake on all sides, for at least fifty feet from the water's edge, is one impassable morass nourishing rank reeds and rushes, where the hippopotamus' ponderous form has crushed into watery trails the soft composition of the morass as he passes from the lake on his nocturnal excursions; the lesser animals; such as the "mbogo" (buffalo), the "punda-terra" (zebra); the " twiga" (giraffe), the boar, the kudu, the hyrax or coney and the antelope; come here also to quench their thirst by night. The surface of the lake swarms with an astonishing variety of water-fowl; such as black swan, duck, ibis sacra cranes, pelicans; and soaring above on the look-out for their prey are fish-eagles and hawks, while the neighbourhood is resonant with the loud chirps of the guinea-fowls calling for their young, with the harsh cry of the toucan, the cooing of the pigeon, and the "to-whit, to-whoo" of the owl. From the long grass in its vicinity also issue the grating and loud cry of the florican, woodcock, and grouse.

Being obliged to halt here two days, owing to the desertion of the Hindi cooper Jako with one of my best carbines, I improved the opportunity of exploring the northern and southern shores of the lake. At the rocky foot of a low, humpy hill on the northern side, about fifteen feet above the present surface of the water I detected in most distinct and definite lines the agency of waves. From its base could be traced clear to the edge of the dank morass tiny lines of comminuted shell as plainly marked as the small particles which lie in rows on a beech after a receding tide. There is no doubt that the wave-marks on the sandstone might have been traced much higher by one skilled in geology; it was only its elementary character that was visible to me. Nor do I entertain the least doubt, after a two days' exploration of the neighbourhood, especially of the low plain at the western end, that this Lake of Ugombo is but the tail of what was once a large body of water equal in extent to the Tanganika; and, after ascending half way up Ugombo Peak, this opinion was confirmed when I saw the long-depressed line of plain at its base stretching towards the Mpwapwa Mountains thirty miles off, and thence round to Marenga Mkali, and covering all that extensive surface of forty miles in breadth, and an unknown length. A depth of twelve feet more, I thought, as I gazed upon it, would give the lake a length of thirty miles, and a breadth of ten. A depth of thirty feet would increase its length over a hundred miles, and give it a breadth of fifty, for such was the level nature of the plain that stretched west of Ugombo, and north of Marenga Mkali.

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