Our Route Was Along The Right Bank Of The Rugufu, A Broad Sluggish Stream, Well Choked With The Matete Reeds And The Papyrus.

The tracks and the bois de vaches of buffaloes were numerous, and there were several indications of rhinoceros being near.

In a deep clump of timber near this river we discovered a colony of bearded and leonine-looking monkeys.

As we were about leaving our camp on the morning of the 28th a herd of buffalo walked deliberately into view. Silence was quickly restored, but not before the animals, to their great surprise, had discovered the danger which confronted them. We commenced stalking them, but we soon heard the thundering sound of their gallop, after which it becomes a useless task to follow them, with a long march in a wilderness before one.

The road led on this day over immense sheets of sandstone and iron ore. The water was abominable, and scarce, and famine began to stare us in the face. We travelled for six hours, and had yet seen no sign of cultivation anywhere. According to my map we were yet two long marches from the Malagarazi - if Captain Burton had correctly laid down the position of the river; according to the natives' account, we should have arrived at the Malagarazi on this day.

On the 29th we left our camp, and after a few minutes, we were in view of the sublimest, but ruggedest, scenes we had yet beheld in Africa. The country was cut up in all directions by deep, wild, and narrow ravines trending in all directions, but generally toward the north-west, while on either side rose enormous square masses of naked rock (sandstone), sometimes towering, and rounded, sometimes pyramidal, sometimes in truncated cones, sometimes in circular ridges, with sharp, rugged, naked backs, with but little vegetation anywhere visible, except it obtained a precarious tenure in the fissured crown of some gigantic hill-top, whither some soil had fallen, or at the base of the reddish ochre scarps which everywhere lifted their fronts to our view.

A long series of descents down rocky gullies, wherein we were environed by threatening masses of disintegrated rock, brought us to a dry, stony ravine, with mountain heights looming above us a thousand feet high. This ravine we followed, winding around in all directions, but which gradually widened, however, into a broad plain, with a western trend. The road, leaving this, struck across a low ridge to the north; and we were in view of deserted settlements where the villages were built on frowning castellated masses of rock. Near an upright mass of rock over seventy feet high, and about fifty yards in diameter, which dwarfed the gigantic sycamore close to it, we made our camp, after five hours and thirty minutes' continuous and rapid marching.

The people were very hungry; they had eaten every scrap of meat, and every grain they possessed, twenty hours before, and there was no immediate prospect of food. I had but a pound and a half of flour left, and this would not have sufficed to begin to feed a force of over forty-five people; but I had something like thirty pounds of tea, and twenty pounds of sugar left, and I at once, as soon as we arrived at camp, ordered every kettle to be filled and placed on the fire, and then made tea for all; giving each man a quart of a hot, grateful beverage; well sweetened. Parties stole out also into the depths: of the jungle to search for wild fruit, and soon returned laden with baskets of the wood-peach and tamarind fruit, which though it did not satisfy, relieved them. That night, before going to sleep, the Wangwana set up a loud prayer to "Allah" to give them food.

We rose betimes in the morning, determined to travel on until food could be procured, or we dropped down from sheer fatigue and weakness. Rhinoceros' tracks abounded, and buffalo seemed to be plentiful, but we never beheld a living thing. We crossed scores of short steeps, and descended as often into the depths of dry, stony gullies, and then finally entered a valley, bounded on one side by a triangular mountain with perpendicular sides, and on the other by a bold group, a triplet of hills. While marching down this valley - which soon changed its dry, bleached aspect to a vivid green - we saw a forest in the distance, and shortly found ourselves in corn-fields. Looking keenly around for a village, we descried it on the summit of the lofty triangular hill on our right. A loud exultant shout was raised at the discovery. The men threw down their packs, and began to clamour for food. Volunteers were asked to come forward to take cloth, and scale the heights to obtain it from the village, at any price. While three or four sallied off we rested on the ground, quite worn out. In about an hour the foraging party returned with the glorious tidings that food was plentiful; that the village we saw was called, "Welled Nzogera's" - the son of Nzogera - by which, of course, we knew that we were in Uvinza, Nzogera being the principal chief in Uvinza. We were further informed that Nzogera, the father, was at war with Lokanda-Mire, about some salt-pans in the valley of the Malagarazi, and that it would be difficult to go to Ujiji by the usual road, owing to this war; but, for a consideration, the son of Nzogera was willing to supply us with guides, who would take us safely, by a northern road, to Ujiji.

Everything auguring well for our prospects, we encamped to enjoy the good cheer, for which our troubles and privations, during the transit of the Ukawendi forests and jungles, had well prepared us.

I am now going to extract from my Diary of the march, as, without its aid, I deem it impossible to relate fully our various experiences, so as to show them properly as they occurred to us; and as these extracts were written and recorded at the close of each day, they possess more interest, in my opinion, than a cold relation of facts, now toned down in memory.

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