III.] VALLEY OF THE LUGERENGEKI. 49 



ever, toned down by their beautiful white flowers and the ten- April, 

 der green of their foliage. ^^'^^• 



At Kisemo the chief brought a goat to our camp and asked 

 for fifty doti as mliongo ; but as he was " a small thief," this re- 

 quest was not comjDlied with. We gave him four doti as the 

 price of the goat and four more as a present, and he professed 

 himself perfectly satisfied, although it was so great a reduction 

 from his attempt at extortion. 



Our road, at starting, led up a steep ascent and across a table- 

 land, gradually sloping toward the west with occasional slight 

 undulations, until we came to the steep and almost clifE-like de- 

 scent into the valley of the Lugerengeri. Frequent outcrops 

 of sandstone and quartz were noticeable, and crystalline peb- 

 bles were plentiful; and the soil, which was in some places 

 of a reddish hue, was at- other points a pure white silver sand, 

 both being covered with a considerable layer of vegetable 

 mold. 



Many beautiful flowers gladdened our eyes on the march, 

 among which were tiger -lilies, convolvuli, primulas of a rich 

 deep yellow, and another having somewhat the a]3pearance of 

 a fox-glove opened back. In the valley of the Lugerengeri I 

 saw some thorn-bushes of osier-like growth bearing large, pur- 

 ple, bell-shaped flowers. From the coast thus far, we had fre- 

 quently met with white primulas, a large yellow daisy, and 

 small red-and-blue flowers, very similar to forget-me-nots. 



The Lugerengeri here lies at the bottom of a valley with a 

 broad and very nearly level sole, which it floods when swollen 

 by exceptional storms, carrying destruction far and wide. 



The year before we passed, one of these inundations — caused 

 by the rains accompanying the hurricane which did so much 

 damage at Zanzibar — swept away about twenty villages, with 

 great loss of life, though no reliable account of the numbers 

 who perished could be obtained. The inhabitants, like verita- 

 ble fatalists, had re-occupied many of the old sites, only a few 

 being sufficiently wise to guard against the recurrence of a sim- 

 ilar disaster by building on small eminences. 



We camped near a village built by some of the wiser ones, 

 and were well received by the chief, who placed a couple of 

 neighboring huts at our disposal for our stores. 



