310 THROUGH UNKNOWN AFRICAN COUNTRIES. 
rels we were carrying, and started on again. To avoid 
the bushes we went some distance back from the river; 
but here we were confronted by miles of high dry 
weeds, that scattered the contents of their seed-pods all 
over our faces and down our backs. The thermometer 
stood 105° in the shade, and in the sun the heat was 
scorching. We camped late in the afternoon about two 
miles from the river, after having made only five geo- 
graphical miles the whole day in a direct line from the 
Gumba. Just opposite the camp I can hear distinctly 
the sounds of a waterfall. 
“ Fuly 28. Yesterday’s work has been repeated. After 
pushing our way up and down through all sorts of country, 
we came to a small stream flowing into the Nianam from 
the Aro Mountains. The first two hours were through 
tall reeds, with the dry seeds sticking to our hot and wet 
bodies and producing much irritation. After we had all 
that we could stand of this we made our way to the river, 
as we supposed; but instead of this we came to a stream ' 
flowing into the Nianam from the Aro Mountains. 
There were no tracks of elephants or other animals. 
The bushes were impenetrable, and outside of them were 
fields of coarse thick grass as high as our heads. We had 
to go through the grass. Finally, after three and a half 
hours on the march, we found some elephant tracks, and 
then our journey became a little easier. 
We marched along these trails, parallel to the tributary, 
until eleven o'clock, when I had tiffin by a httle ditch run- 
ning into the tributary. After an hour we continued 
again through dense jungles, until we were stopped by the 
tributary, which now ran at right angles to us. After con- 
siderable difficulty we managed to get the donkeys across 
! This tributary was twenty yards wide, four feet deep, and flowing at the 
rate of four miles an hour. 
