Where The Jungle Was Dense The Colour Was Green, Alternating With Dark Brown; Where The Plain Appeared Denuded Of Bush And Brake It Had A Whity-Brown Appearance, On Which The Passing Clouds Now And Again Cast Their Deep Shadows.

Altogether this side of the picture was not inviting; it exhibited too plainly the true wilderness in its sternest

Aspect; but perhaps the knowledge that in the bosom of the vast plain before me there was not one drop of water but was bitter as nitre, and undrinkable as urine, prejudiced me against it, The hunter might consider it a paradise, for in its depths were all kinds of game to attract his keenest instincts; but to the mere traveller it had a stern outlook. Nearer, however, to the base of the Mpwapwa the aspect of the plain altered. At first the jungle thinned, openings in the wood appeared, then wide and naked clearings, then extensive fields of the hardy holcus, Indian corn, and maweri or bajri, with here and there a square tembe or village. Still nearer ran thin lines of fresh young grass, great trees surrounded a patch of alluvial meadow. A broad river-bed, containing several rivulets of water, ran through the thirsty fields, conveying the vivifying element which in this part of Usagara was so scarce and precious. Down to the river-bed sloped the Mpwapwa, roughened in some places by great boulders of basalt, or by rock masses, which had parted from a precipitous scarp, where clung the kolquall with a sure hold, drawing nourishment where every other green thing failed; clad in others by the hardy mimosa, which rose like a sloping bank of green verdure almost to the summit. And, happy sight to me so long a stranger to it, there were hundreds of cattle grazing, imparting a pleasing animation to the solitude of the deep folds of the mountain range.

But the fairest view was obtained by looking northward towards the dense group of mountains which buttressed the front range, facing towards Rubeho. It was the home of the winds, which starting here and sweeping down the precipitous slopes and solitary peaks on the western side, and gathering strength as they rushed through the prairie-like Marenga Mkali, howled through Ugogo and Unyamwezi with the force of a storm, It was also the home of the dews, where sprang the clear springs which cheered by their music the bosky dells below, and enriched the populous district of Mpwapwa. One felt better, stronger, on this breezy height, drinking in the pure air and feasting the eyes on such a varied landscape as it presented, on spreading plateaus green as lawns, on smooth rounded tops, on mountain vales containing recesses which might charm a hermit's soul, on deep and awful ravines where reigned a twilight gloom, on fractured and riven precipices, on huge fantastically-worn boulders which overtopped them, on picturesque tracts which embraced all that was wild, and all that was poetical in Nature.

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