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.
