March, 1874Ras Kungwé is situated near the narrowest part of the lake, where it is not more than fifteen miles across, and after rounding that point we passed under enormous hills clothed with trees, and having crystal torrents and waterfalls flashing down their sides.

At the bottom of these hills. especially near the mouth of the torrents, were many small beaches, some of fine sand and other of coarse angular shingle of granite, quartz and iron ore.

Patches of corn amongst the jungle denoted the haunts of wretched fugitives from the slave-hunters. These poor creatures were doomed to a miserable existence owing to the few strong villages hunting down their weaker neighbours, to excahnge them with traders from Ujiji for food which they are too lazy to produce themselves.

For the night we remained in the river Luuluga near the village Kinyari, where the Wajiji who coasted down with us sold their corn, oil, and goats for slaves - the only product of the place - and then turned homewards.

The price of a slave was from four to six doti, or two goats; and as a goat could be bought for a shukkah at Ujiji, where slaves were worth twenty doti, the profits of the Wajiji must have been enormous.

I took occasion to visit the village and found it of moderate size, composed of conical huts surrounded by a heavy palisade and a ditch, a single slippery plank across which led to the only entrance. Above the entrance and at each corner of the palisade were heavy crows's-nests well supplied with large stones in readiness to hurl at the enemy; while the palisade was hurled with horizontal logs to a height of seven feet above the ground, rendering it nearly musket-proof.

Tobacco was grown in small quantities - that being the only attempt at cultivation - and the men sometimes went fishing if the fancy took them, but for trade and support the place depended upon nothing but the traffic in slaves.

At the moment of my entering the village dance was being performed by two men, with a variety of pantomimic action, jumping, and somersault turning, but their efforts as a whole were very tame and lacked spirit and energy.

When they considered they had exercised themselves sufficiently for the amusement of the bystanders they dragged themselves along the ground as if utterly exhausted, and, pretending to be dying of hunger, threw themselves at the feet of some person who was expected to give them a handful or two of corn. Having received their reward they then continued their performance.

They were accompanied by half-a-dozen men beating drums, and another who droned though a sort of recitative.

One native obligingly turned out in war-paint for me to admire him. He wore a cap and particularly hideous mask of zebra-skin and carried two spears and a shield. The latter was five feet six inches long and ten inches wide, with a cane handle in the centre, and was made of the wood of a palm-tree, and though he declared it was strong enough to resist anything he declined to submit it to the test of a rifle bullet.

In the night there were such heavy squalls, with thunder and lightning, that I turned out to make certain that my boat was properly secured. All the men except Bombay were quartered on shore and had utilised the oars for the framework of their huts, and I did not fancy going for a cruise on such a night without either men or oars.

While thus engaged the rain fell fast and furious, half-filling the boats with water; so I roused up the men to bale them out and then returned to my crib in the stern of the Betsy.

But what a sorry sight met with view. My awning had nearly blown away, and bed, charts, books, and guns, were all soaking wet.

After surveying for a moment these dismal ruins I gathered together what I could under my waterproof, and putting my head between my knees sat like a hen on a brood of chickens.

The lightning and thunder were almost appaling. One flash struck the water close to the boat, and was so quickly followed by the thunder-clap that they seemed simultaneous. I was quite stunned by the crash and at first thought I had been struck, being so dazzled by the glare that my sight did not properly return for more than half an hour.

The morning was very uncomfortable as may be supposed, and the men being rather unnerved refused to move because of a little sea being on; but late in the afternoon we got away and passing close under the hills - from which many torrents were falling into the lake - camped in the river Lubugwe.

On the 26th we were under way early and passed the small island Kililo, river Lufungu, and Ras Katimba, where we camped intending to move again in the afternoon if the weather cleared.

But a slight swell frightened my brave Jack tars. They said, "Lake bad, and canoes break again;" and persuade them to go on I could not. Even the Wajiji who had lived all their lives by the lake were quite as bad, for they brought their hire to me, saying, "Let us go back. We don't want to die,"

What would I not have given for a man-of-war's whaler and crew for six weeks ! I should then have been able to have done something thoroughly satisfactory instead of creeping in and out of the bays and getting no cross-bearings.

All the danger we ran arose from the habit of going along almost touching the rocks. They will persist in following this course, and if there is a sudden squall, on shore they go. Their extreme timidity actually brings them into danger, though they cannot see it. But it is often noticeable that cowards run more risks and come oftener to grief than those who face things manfully.

The hills were now getting lower and running further back from the lake; and on the 28th we ran between the island of Kabogo and the mainland.

The strait is about two and a half miles long and three hundred yards wide at the entrance - where there are sand-bars - and widens to a mile and a half in the middle.

We landed on the island and obtained some fish from the inhabitants in exchange for palm oil, of which they are very fond. It is very thickly populated, fertile and well cultivated, and the huts standing alone in their own provision grounds and shaded by a sycamore or some other giant of the forest, gave a look of peaceful security which had been wanting since leaving Kawélé.

Opposite on the mainland there was only the village of the chief; but on both the island and the main the fan-palm was very plentiful.

Birds of many kinds were numerous, and a handsome pencilled brown lily-trotter with white head and neck walked about on the floating leaves of the lilies - with which much of the surface of the water was covered - looking amongst the blossoms for its meal of insects.

At the end of the strait a sandpit almost joins the island to the main, and here amongst a mass of reeds was the landing-place. Several narrow passages admitted the small canoes of the natives, numbers of which were flitting about from point to point. Our large boats, however, could only reach the shore by dint of shoving and hauling and breaking down the reeds on either side, and so thickly did they grow that the men were able to get out and shove the boat along while standing on the broken-down reeds.

Ponda was the name of the chief, and Karyan Gwina that of the village. Ponda was one of two sons of a chief who formerly ruled, or claimed to rule, over the whole of Kawendi; but on the old man's death it was divided into many factions and the sons contended themselves with settling on the shores of the lake.

After a time they quarrelled and Ponda, being the weaker, left his brother in possession and founded this village which was large and strongly fortified with ditches and palisades.

The people were very jealous about allowing strangers inside. Indeed, a party of Wanyamwési sent by Mkasiwah, chief of Unyanyembé with a present of cattle for his daughter who had married Ponda, were obliged to camp outside. Perhaps this was partly owing to the Wanyamwési having unfortunately had the present stolen from them on the road by the Warori.

Having obtained permission to enter I went to the village, and found it well kept and divided into several sections by interior palisades radiating from an open space in the centre.

On each side of the gate leading to the chief's quarters a couple of logs were placed as seats for the convenience of persons waiting an audience, and above them were about forty skulls of men and half-a-dozen of wild beasts.

A crowd was assembled in the village, looking at two hideously ugly old hags dancing to the sound of large drums beaten by men. This performance was very disgusting, the principal feature being a sort of convulsive trembling and twitching of the body and limbs, while the shrivelled and wrinkled breasts of the dancers shook about like a couple of empty leather bottles.

They howled a song, and at any particular hard shake the women standing round joined in the chorus.

Their dress consisted of most scanty waist cloths of bark, bunches of long hair (zebra's tails) tied to their knees and elbows, and rings of bells round their ankles.

The chief sent me a little sour milk and some flour, and I made him a small return while expressing a hope that he would either visit me or that I might call upon him. But he refused any intercourse, because, as I afterwards heard, he believed me to be a magician capable of stealing his little mind and leaving him a complete idiot if given the opportunity of looking upon him.

Here I met a young Msuahili whose acquaintance I had made at Unyanyemb&ecute;. He had come to trade, ivory being very cheap. A frasilah could ordinarly be bought for twelve doti, but by hard bargaining he had obtained two frasilah for eighteen doti.

Bitterly did he complain of the high price of slaves, twelve doti for a young girl and five or six for a chid being to his mind an exorbitant price !

Being unwilling to remain here until he had disposed of all his goods, he wanted me to buy his cloth and other stores and give him a passage to Ujiji, his men being afraid of the road to Unyanyembé - by which he had come - on account of its being infested by robbers. I did not require his cloth, but told him he was welcome to a passage in my boat; but when we got away the next day we left the Msuahili behind, for his Wanyamwési porters were more afraid of the perils of the lake than the danger of being attacked by banditti on shore.

After clearing the reeds we skirted along a beach under Karyan Gwina crowded with people bathing, filling water-pots, looking after their fishing gear, or staring at the passing boats.

We then came to low cliffs formed of granite, porphiry and sandstone, and rotten clay - with many landslips and caves caused by the beating of the waves - and ran into the Luguvu under more cliffs formed by a line of large hills.

My men's dread of facing a little wind at sea detained us here a whole day; for, if forced to go on, they were just in the humour to have done their utmost to make difficulties in order to prove that they were right objecting to start.

Hippopotami, crocodiles and monkeys were here in abundance, and but for my lameness this halt would not have been so tiresome. My feet and legs were, however, covered with boils that prevented my going out shooting or even leaving the boat.

Getting away from here we passed close under nearly vertical cliffs of sandstone and black marble streaked with white, and after a time a great patch of what, from the appearance of the cleavage, I believe to have been coal.

When the East Coast men saw it, they called out, "Makaa Marikébu" - ship coal. The thickness of the principal seam, which lay on the top of synclinal curves of rock of which the anticlinal curves had been worn away, was between fifteen and eighteen feet.

Although unable to obtain a specimen of coal from this particular spot, some was afterwards given me which came from Itawa, in the same latitude and a short distance to the westward of the lake. This was undoubtedly a light bituminous coal.

Passing several streams and torrents we came to the termination of the cliffs at river Makanyazi. Here the guides said there were large quantities of honey; but it was under the protection of an evil spirit none was to be collected lest he should do us some injury, and not one of the men could be persuaded to gather any.

Just as we landed I noticed the scaly back of a crocodile amongst the grass, and seizing my rifle put two bullets into him killing him at once. On clearing away the grass round him he turned out to be only a small one about four feet long.

Hippopotami blowing and snorting kept us awake all night, but our fires prevented their venturing into the camp. Judging from the number of their footmarks we must have pitched upon a favourite landing-place, whence their track led straight up a steep hill which one would have thought it impossible for such unwieldy beasts to scale.M

Besides the disturbance caused by river-horses there was quite a plague of frogs incessantly croaking the livelong night. The noise of some resembled that made by caulkers or riveters, while others, larger or nearer, sounded more like smiths forging, and a few made a croak like a ratchet drill, so that with a little imagination it was not difficult to fancy oneself in a ship-building yard.

April, 1874 We passed the village of Ponda's brother the following morning, and upon a heavy squall coming up behind, ran inside a small sandy spit with half-a-dozen huts on it.

The inhabitants bolted with their goods and chattels when they saw us coming; for although a heavy palisade was built across the spit as a protection on the land site, it was perfectly open to the water.

After the squall a steady soaking rain set in and we lay up for the night. Some of the men went to a neighbouring village in search of food and found there the people who had been frightened at our approach, believing that we were Arabs' slaves employed to hunt for slaves.

Food was not obtained here, nor indeed for some days afterwards, and the stock of corn laid in at Ujiji being spoilt by the continuous rains we began to feel hungry.

At the mouth of the river Musamwira - which drains the Likwa into the Tanganyika - we next halted amongst a group of sandy grass-covered islands. Some people engaged here in fishing made an attempt to run away on seeing us. For on this occasion we were thought to be followers of Mirambo, whose dreaded name had reached this remote spot.

A few years previously these islands had been part of a large, cultivated, and inhabited plain; and during the day we pulled through stumps of trees and over sites of many old villages.

According to the accounts given me by the guides, the lake is constantly encroaching upon its shores and increasing in size. And at Kawélé I remarked that since Burton was there a strip more than six hundfred yards wide appeared to have been washed away for a distance of three or four miles.

Although there were many large fishing traps lying about we could get nothing to eat, the few fishermen telling us that all the people had gone elsewhere owing to the constant washing away of the shores of the lake. Indeed the errand which had now brought them to the island was merely to collect fishing gear which had been left behind when the flitting took place.

Another devil's habitation was passed on the next day's cruise. The guides made the usual offering and oration with the addition of putting salt on their heads besides throwing some into the water.

The name of the demon was Musamwira, and on enquiring why he did not haunt the river of that name I was told he sometimes went there, but his usual dwelling-place was just behind a hill where the offering was made.

We made sail the next morning to run down to Massi Kambi, where we were hoping to be able to get some food. But it being rather squally my men became so nervous that I had to allow the sail to be lowered. They then persisted in going close in shore, and in the end had to pull head to wind instead of running right across with a fair breeze.

All the entrances of Massi Kambi were closed and the crows'-nests manned on our drawing near; so we camped on a small sand-bank, having on it a few fishermen's huts built on piles. The wind and sea increased to such an extent that we were subsequently obliged to move to the mainland.

An inhabitant of Massi Kambi.

Here we remained a day to procure food, but a few sweet potatoes and beans were our only reward. In the afternoon I shot a large Lepidosiren, called by the natives, Singa; but it was so loathsome to look at that no one would touch it, and the people declared it was poisonous.

Leaving this place we rounded up Ras Mpimbwe, a promontory formed of enormous masses of granite piled on each other in the wildest confusion and looking as though some race of Titans had commenced building a breakwater.

In the early morning just after we started there was a most curious optical illusion. The summits of the mountains of the west of the lake had the exact appearance of being covered with snow, and while I was wondering and looking at them steadily through the glasses the white began to disappear and then I discovered the cause of the illusion.

The almost horizontal rays of the rising sun had been reflected by the lower sides of the clouds down on the tops of the mountains, which consequently looked quite white in contrast to the lower parts which were still in deep shadow. It is just possible that many reports of snow-capped mountains might be ascribed to this cause.

Off Ras Mpimbwe there were very many rocks in all directions just half a-wash, and dangerous work it was passing through them.

About noon we camped on the north side of Ras Kambemba - off which lies a small island of the same name - and shortly after settling down I heard the cry that some game was in camp. On going out with my rifle I found that some buffalo had been near but had been completely scared by the noise.

In returning my rifle to its place against the tent-pole, my fowling-piece which was also strapped to the pole was accidentally discharged. My head being close to the muzzle, the fire and report naturally made me spring backwards, when I tumbled right over my bed and cut my head severely and half-stunned myself.

I confess I rather thought I was shot, but on hearing my servant sing out, "Bwana amepigwa" (Master's shot), I roused myself and found only a scalp wound resulting from my fall.

My servant on seeing me lying in a heap with my head bleeding made certain I was killed; but the only damage done was a hole through the top of the tent where the charge of shot made its exit.

The country here was composed of great masses of granite and hardened sandstone chiefly imbedded in very soft red sandstone, which, being easily washed away leaves the hard rocks standing out by themselves.

Tanganyika seems to have more than its proper share of devils, for at Kamasanga we arrived at the dwelling of another. The Wajiji, as usual, paid their respects, saying, "Oh ! devil, give us good lake, little wind, little rain; let canoes go well, go quick."

There were many islands brought down by the rivers, more like those of the Mississippi than the ordinary masses of floating vegetation, and one about a quarter of a mile in diameter had some small trees on it.

Signs of recent cultivation and marks where a few huts had stood were noticeable at our camping-place. I enquired where the people were; "killed, slaves, or runaways," was as usual the answer.

Ras Katanki, with small rocky points inside it, and the village of Massanga being passed, the east and west of the lake closes in. And this, I expect, is the narrowing of Livingstone's Lake Liemba.

A cowardly panic arose amongst all hands because I made sail to the breeze before a thunderstorm, in order to reach to camp Chakuola before rain came on.

Two canoes of native were in a horrid fright at our arrival and while a few stopped and prepared for action the majority bolted off into the jungle; but we soon restored confidence and bought some fish of them.

The Wajiji guides now asked for what they termed a customary present of cloth to dress in; and although they were already well paid I complied with their request, for they were very good and useful men.

Passing Ras Chakuola on the 9th of April - the rocks near which were composed of a sort of pudding-stone looking as though it had originally been liquid clay and had become mixed with small stones - we came to the river Chakuola, and Makakomo islands, which the guides informed me had been a portion of the mainland within their remembrance. Kapoopia, the sultan of the islands, was a chief of some importance.

At Ras Makurungwe the rocks consisted of granite seventy or eighty feet high with perpendicular sides; and at Kowenga island there were huge blocks strewn about in the utmost confusion.

When we landed the women and children ran into the jungle and the men cleared for action, each having his bow and half-a-dozen arrows ready and about twenty more arrows in his quiver.

Squalls and rain during the night and a wild-looking morning delayed our start, and on beginning to pack up one of the askari accidentally shot himself in getting into the boat. The bullet entered into the right arm, and passing either close in front of, or behind, the shoulder-blade, came out at the lower inner angle. He was so fat that it was difficult to determine which course it took; but the lung was not injured and there was no escape of air.

I made a couple of pads of a cambric handkerchief and bound him up, lashing his arm so that he could not move it, and though he lost much blood it was all venous, and soon stopped.

After I had given him some morphine to induce sleep, his chums differed from my treatment and gave him hot water to drink in order, as they said, to remove any bad blood in his stomach. He consequently retched most violently and the bleeding burst out again.

I constantly cautioned the men against keeping their guns loaded, yet this fool used his rifle as a boat-hook, holding it by the muzzle and clawing at the gunwale of the boat with the hammer !

No imported cloth was to be seen at the village of Kitata, the people wearing skins, bark cloth, or cotton of their own manufacture.

The people suspend their clothing round the waist by rope as thick as the little finger, bound neatly with brass wire.

Their wool is sometimes anointed with oil in which red earth has been mixed, giving them the appearance of having dipped their heads in blood.

We next camped at Makukira on a river of the same name, as I was suffering from a severe pain in my eyes and was too ill to take bearings. Makukira was a large place with a ditch and stockade banked up on the outside.

The chief was profusely greased, had a patch of lampblack on his chest and forehead and wore a tiara of leopard-claws with the roots dyed red, and behind it a tuft of coarse whitish hair. A pair of leopard-skin aprons, a few circles of yellow grass below his knees, a ring of sofi on each ankle and a fly-flapper with the handle covered with beads, completed his attire - if we except the lampblack which was rubbed into all his tatoo marks.

His wives, one of whom was very good-looking, were busy getting pombé ready for him; and having poured some into a calabash and filled it up with hot water, one of them sat on a stool alongside him. Then taking the calabash on her lap she held it while he sucked the contents through a reed. He kindly sent me some of this beverage, but I was much too unwell to taste it.

Girls without children often make dolls of a calabash ornamented with beads and lash it to the back in the same manner as infants are usually carried in their country.

Children are reared at the breast until two or three years of age, and I saw one alternately sucking at nature's fount and a pombé reed; so that they may literally be said to imbibe the taste for pombé with their mother's milk.

Long knobbed walking-sticks were used by the chief and his wives, and beads and wire were common.

We went on to Kirumbu on the Mivito, where cotton is manufactured, nearly a third of the population wearing clothes of native make. It is coarse stuff something like superior gunney-bag, and the patterns and checks after the style of large shepherd's plaid with black stripes near the border, all habing fringe.

As I sighted land at the end of the lake, I hoped another day's pulling would be all that was necessary before turning.

But we wanted food, the small villages not supplying enough and even Makukira being drawn almost blank. Camping that night near a village in the river Kisungi, we were again disappointed at finding food scarce and expensive.

Yet when Dr. Livingstone was here on his last journey, only about fifteen or sixteen months previously, I am told provisions were plentiful and the people had many goats. Parties of Wanyamwési and others had, however, carried off not only the goats but many people also.

The slave-trader is spreading in the interior, and will continue to do so until it is either put down with a strong hand or dies a natural death from the total destruction of the population. At present events are tending towards depopulation; for the Arabs, who had only penetrated Manyuéma a few years, already have a settlement close to Nyangwé from which parties are able to go slave-hunting still further afield.

The head chief of this place lives four days' journey inland; but at Mikisungi there was a chief named Mpara Gwina whom I called upon.

He was old and perfectly white-haired, and his office did not seem profitable for he was certainly the worst dressed of the people. His forehead and hair were daubed with vermilion, yellow, and white powder, the pollen of flowers. A tribal mark of raised cuts formed a blotch on each temple, and he wore a frontlet of beads.

When I called he was busy spinning cotton with another man, while their wives and daughters sat near picking the seeds out of freshly gathered pods. The fibre was laid in heaps by the side of the chief and his friend, who - spindles in hand - were making it into yarn.

Their wooden spindles were about fourteen inches long and half an inch in diameter, with a piece of curved wood as a weight, half an inch from the top, where a small wire hook was fixed.

The cotton was first worked between the forefinger and thumb into a sort of rough tape about half a yard long, and then hooked to the spindle, which was rolled along the right thigh to give it a rapid spinning motion. The yarn was held in the left hand - the spindle hanging from it - and the right forefinger and thumb were used to prevent any irregularities in the size of the thread. As soon as a length was spun it was unhooked and wound round the spindle, and more cotton was prepared, hooked on and spun in the same manner.

The yarn turned out by these means, though coarse, is fairly strong and wonderfully regular in size. It is afterwards wound on sticks about four feet long used as shuttles in weaving.

The profile of the people was good, their noses being Roman; but all have the spreading alœ nasi. The heads of some were completely covered with sofi or pipe-stem beads, each strung on a separate tuft of hair, an arrangement which must be very uncomfortable and is not at all prepossessing, having too much the appearance of scales.

Those who cannot afford beads imitate the fashion by making their wool into blobs and greasing it until one cannot detect the separate fibers.

Grass leglets and bracelets, made from the Upindha (brab) very neatly twisted or plaited were very commonly worn.

Their bows were provided with a fringe of long hair at one or both ends, and were sewed over besides having the spare string wound round them. Arrows were of various lengths, not feathered or poisoned, and all knives were shaped like spear-heads.

The people had at one time grown a considerable amount of corn but the Watuta killed most of the men, and a few of that tribe who still remained in the jungle hereabouts - neither cultivating nor building huts - subsisted entirely by the chase and plunder. The hoes I saw were very large, exceeding the size of an ordinary garden spade.

I may mention that the prefix "Ba" is used instead of "Wa" by the different tribes, such as Bafipa, Batuta.

Arabs occasionally pass inland, but no large boats had been seen for years and the people never saw a sail before the Betsy arrived.

Leaving early on the morning of the 15th of April, and passing the rivers Mundewli and Muomeesa and the villages of Kasangalowa and Mambema, we began to lose sight of the land of rocks.

On the outside of Polungo island were enormous masses, scattered and piled in the most fantastic manner - vast overhanging blocks, rocking-stones, obelisks, pyramids, and every form imaginable. The whole was overgrown with trees jutting out from every crevice or spot where soil had lodged, and from them hung creepers fifty or sixty feet long, while through this fringe there were occasional glimpses of hollows and caves.

The glorious lake with its heaving bosom lay bathed in tropical sunshine and one could scarcely imagine the scene to be a reality. It seemed as if designed for some grand transformation in a pantomime, and one almost expected the rocks to open and sprites and fairies to appear.

As I paused to gaze at the wondrous sight - all being still, without a sign of life - suddenly the long creepers began to move as some brown object quickly followed by another and another was seen. This was a party of monkeys, swinging themselves along and outdoing Leotard on the flying trapeze; and then, stopping and hanging by one paw, they chattered and gibbered at the strange sight of a boat. A shout, and they were gone more rapidly than they came, whilst the rolling echo almost equalled thunder in its intensity.

In places the slightest shock of earthquake would cause masses of thousand of tons to topple down from their lofty sites and carry ruin and destruction before them.

Large cotton-plants were apparently growing wild at the camping-place, but possibly this had formerly been a clearing. The cliffs were of chalk of very white limestone split vertically, the lines as sharp as though cut with a knife.

I found it extremely difficult to keep my map correctly, as the guides changed the names most perplexingly and called an island a cape and a cape an island; while my ideas were not the clearest after so much fever and quinine.

We now came to the debatable ground between Ufipa and Ulungu.

On starting on the 16th we rounded a low point with cliffs looking exactly as though built by man. It was only at the point that this peculiarity existed, inside the cliffs were quite different. The courses, too, were as regular as possible, and where bared at top they were in a perfectly level unbroken surface, so I suppose they are innumerable small strata.

There was a deserted village here, and I saw several others which had been abandoned owing to deaths having occurred in them.

Industrial settlements after the pattern of the French mission at Bagamoyo, to teach trades and cultivation, would seem to be the proper line for missionary work in this country.

In the afternoon the eclipse commenced while we were camped at Lungu. The sun was hidden in clouds, and when it became clear again rain was falling and two very perfect rainbows were formed. These faded away for three minutes from the eclipse and occurred again for a few minutes before sunset.

The diminution of light was very perceptible, and some of my men took this opportunity of stealing seven goats belonging to people living near.

There were too many concerned in the theft to discover the real offenders; but I sent the goats back with a present of beads for the owner. If one only had been stolen it would probably have been killed and eaten outside the cap. I should have known nothing of it, and no very flattering opinion of white men would have been left on the minds of the people.

Land now lay right across on the west side and we were apparently at the end of the lake. But there was a narrow arm running up about twenty miles, ending in a mass of grass through which boats cannot pass, and a river called Kirumbwé here falls into the lake.

on sighting a village all hands immediately wanted to halt for food although a week's provisions had been laid in two days before. We were only two days out, and the boats were regularly lumbered up with bags of corn, sweet potatoes and bananas, so I would not yield to this laziness and idle excuse.

We passed Ras Yamini with high cliffs having the appearance of ruined ramparts. There is no doubt they are natural formations, as enormous irregular blocks occasionally showed out; but the ruined cities of Central America have much the same appearance, as they are not of any great extent and are succeeded by masses of rock.

A large village in front ought to have been reached on this day; but the men persisted in pulling so badly that I could no longer remain in the boat, and camped.

Small worries add immensely to the hardships of travelling. Real troubles and difficulties one faces as a matter of course. But lazy men wanting to stop when there is everything in favour of a good day' work, a cook who says that there is no dinner when one is hungry, and being constantly thwarted, annoy one and try the temper more than enough.

My pipe was, however, a great consolation, and I told my servant to bring it to me whenever he heard me pitching into any one.

Since leaving Ujiji the work had been very wearying owing to the constant, never-ceasing attention required to prevent mistakes between the different points and to make people understand my questions. And I was obliged to prove everything after all by my own observation - being so frequently told that islands were points and points islands.

The guides were never able to name a place until close to it, and had very little conception of the lay of the land they had coasted along many times. Local knowledge is wonderfully good, but they seem incapable of grasping anything like a general idea.

They stared at my map and thought it a most wonderful performance; and when I said that people in England would know the shape and size of Tanganyika and the names an situation of rivers and villages by means of it, I am inclined to fancy they thought me a magician.

My telling them of the eclipse before it happened impressed them greatly.

The supposed "long arm" I found to be a myth, but I believe a river of considerable size with a very grassy mouth flows into the lake at the bottom.

Tingi-tingi is the name given to grassy places at the mouths of rivers and elsewhere if the grass is too thick for boats to pass through but not thick enough for men to walk on : Sindi is the name given when it will bear a man's weight. From this cause the river near Ugaga is called Sindi; but they also talk of other rivers as sindi, e.g. the Kirumbwé is said to be tingi-tingi with a little sindi.

Shortly after starting again we came to Kasangalowa in the Kowa - Kougono being the name of the sultan - and here saw Michikichi or palm-oil trees for the first time since leaving Ujiji.

The village was in the possession of the Watuta, the lawful inhabitants having fled to the hills.

All the Watuta men carry bows and arrows, short spears either for throwing or close quarters, a knobstick, small axe, and an oval shield of skin four feet by two feet six inches. Even the little boys carry a heavy knobstick.

They turned out in great numbers, ver black and naked, to see what our business might be and seemed very friendly to us notwithstanding their character is that of universal robbers.

They enlarge the lobes of their ears like the Wagogo, carrying in them pieces of gourd and wood sometimes ornamented with beads.

The women wear a small skin apron and dispose another skin behind in a manner more fanciful than decorous; for while covering the upper part of their legs it leaves another portion of their body most fully exposed. These sterns aprons are cut so as to turn down a flap - occasionally decorated with beads - to allow a full and open rear view. It must therfore be the fashion to show that part. Perhaps their object is to prove they have no tails.

Watuta woman.

Those who can afford it wear a broad band of parti-coloured beads round the head and another round the waist.

In some cases the hair is shaven away underneath the band of beads worn round the head while allowed to grow bushy above, having exactly the appearance of a fur cap or Kilmarnock bonnet.

The people universally chip the two upper front incisors, and some chip the whole of them and extract the two center ones in the lower jaw. The tribal mark seemed to be a line down the centre of the forehead and two on the temples, sometimes continued to the chin.

Some of the men had enormously heavy spears, generally used in elephant-hunting. The butt was larger than the rest of the haft and was made of black wood or ebony to give weight.

Wapimbwe and Watongwe live in Ufipa mixed with Bafipa. Watuta and Wapimbwe live in Ulungu as a wild people, with different chiefs, but allies of the Watuta. Kitimba is chief of all Watuta.

The Watuta obtain their livelihood by the chase and settle down in any village, as they had in this one, until all their victims' food is consumed and the huts are burnt as fuel. Then they make a foray on another and repeat this little game. None of the regular inhabitants attempt resistance but seek safety in flight, for Watuta fighting means indiscriminate slaughter.

Here, for the first time in Africa, I saw a woman with twins.