The first line of hills; gaining
the summit of which we obtained a view remarkably grand, which
exhibited as in a master picture the broad valley of the Makata,
with its swift streams like so many cords of silver, as the
sunshine played on the unshadowed reaches of water, with its
thousands of graceful palms adding not a little to the charm of the
scene, with the great wall of the Uruguru and Uswapanga mountains
dimly blue, but sublime in their loftiness and immensity - forming a
fit background to such an extensive, far-embracing prospect.
Turning our faces west, we found ourselves in a mountain world,
fold rising above fold, peak behind peak, cone jostling cone; away
to the north, to the west, to the south, the mountain tops rolled
like so many vitrified waves; not one adust or arid spot was
visible in all this scene. The diorama had no sudden changes or
striking contrasts, for a universal forest of green trees clothed
every peak, cone, and summit.
To the men this first day's march through the mountain region of
Usagara was an agreeable interlude after the successive journey
over the flats and heavy undulations of the maritime region, but
to the loaded and enfeebled animals it was most trying. We were
minus two by the time we had arrived at our camp, but seven miles
from Rehenneko, our first instalment of the debt we owed to Makata.
Water, sweet and clear, was abundant in the deep hollows of the
mountains, flowing sometimes over beds of solid granite, sometimes
over a rich red sandstone, whose soft substance was soon penetrated
by the aqueous element, and whose particles were swept away
constantly to enrich the valley below; and in other ravines it
dashed,, and roared, miniature thunder, as it leaped over granite
boulders and quartz rock.
The 9th of May, after another such an up-and-down course, ascending
hills and descending into the twilight depths of deepening
valleys, we came suddenly upon the Mukondokwa, and its narrow
pent-up valley crowded with rank reedy grass, cane, and thorny
bushes; and rugged tamarisk which grappled for existence with
monster convolvuli, winding their coils around their trunks with
such tenacity and strength that the tamarisk seemed grown
but for their support.
The valley was barely a quarter of a mile broad in some places -
at others it widened to about a mile. The hills on either side
shot up into precipitous slopes, clothed ,with mimosa, acacia,
and tamarisk, enclosing a river and valley whose curves and
folds were as various as a serpent's.
Shortly after debouching into the Mukondokwa valley, we struck the
road traversed by Captains Buxton and Speke in 1857, between Mbumi
and Kadetamare (the latter place should be called Misonghi,
Kadetamare being but the name of a chief). After following the
left bank of the Mukondokwa, during which our route diverged to
every point from south-east to west, north and northeast, for
about an hour, we came to the ford.
