Though The Height We Ascended Was Barely 800 Feet Above The Salina We Had Just Left, The Ascent Occupied Two Hours.

Having surmounted the plateau and the worst difficulties, we had a fair road comparatively, which ran through jungle, forest, and small open tracts, which in three hours more brought us to Munieka, a small village, surrounded by a clearing richly cultivated by a colony of subjects of Swaruru of Mukondoku.

By the time we had arrived at camp everybody had recovered his good humour and content except Hamed. Thani's men happened to set his tent too close to Hamed's tree, around which his bales were stacked. Whether the little Sheikh imagined honest old Thani capable of stealing one is not known, but it is certain that he stormed and raved about the near neighbourhood of his best friend's tent, until Thani ordered its removal a hundred yards off. This proceeding even, it seems, did not satisfy Hamed, for it was quite midnight - as Thani said - when Hamed came, and kissing his hands and feet, on his knees implored forgiveness, which of course Thani, being the soul of good-nature, and as large-hearted as any man, willingly gave. Hamed was not satisfied, however, until, with the aid of his slaves, he had transported his friend's tent to where it had at first been pitched.

The water at Munieka was obtained from a deep depression in a hump of syenite, and was as clear as crystal, and' cold as ice-water - a luxury we had not experienced since leaving Simbamwenni.

We were now on the borders of Uyanzi, or, as it is better known, "Magunda Mkali " - the Hot-ground, or Hot-field. We had passed the village populated by Wagogo, and were about to shake the dust of Ugogo from our feet. We had entered Ugogo full of hopes, believing it a most pleasant land - a land flowing with milk and honey. We had been grievously disappointed; it proved to be a land of gall and bitterness, full of trouble and vexation of spirit, where danger was imminent at every step - where we were exposed to the caprice of inebriated sultans. Is it a wonder, then, that all felt happy at such a moment? With the prospect before us of what was believed by many to be a real wilderness, our ardor was not abated, but was rather strengthened. The wilderness in Africa proves to be, in many instances, more friendly than the populated country. The kirangozi blew his kudu horn much more merrily on this morning than he was accustomed to do while in Ugogo. We were about to enter Magunda Mkali. At 9 A.M., three hours after leaving Munieka, and two hours since we had left the extreme limits of Ugogo, we were halted at Mabunguru Nullah. The Nullah runs southwesterly after leaving its source in the chain of hills dividing Ugogo from Magunda Mkali. During the rainy season it must be nearly impassable, owing to the excessive slope of its bed.

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