200 ACROSS AFEICA. [Chap. 



April, larlj lumbered up with bags of corn, sweet-potatoes and bana- 

 ^S''-*. lias; so I would not yield to this laziness and idle excuse. 



We passed Ras Yamini, with high clili's having the appear- 

 ance 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 rocks. 



A large village in front ought to have been reached on this 

 day ; but the men persisted in jmlling so badly that I could no 

 longer remain in the boat, but camped. 



Small worries add immensel}^ to the hardships of traveling. 

 Real troubles and difficulties one faces, as a matter of course. 

 But lazy men wanting to stop when there is every thing in fa- 

 vor of a good day's work, a cook who sa^^s that there is no din- 

 ner when one is hungry, and being constantly thwarted, annoy 

 one, and try the temper more than enough. My pipe was, how- 

 ever, 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, ow- 

 ing to the constant, never-ceasing attention required to prevent 

 mistakes between the different points, and to make people un- 

 derstand my questions ; and I was obliged to prove every thing, 

 after all, by my own observation — being so frequently told that 

 islands were points, and points islands. 



As an instance of the haziness of these people's ideas, I may 

 mention that, on first seeing high land at the south end, I was 

 informed it was a large island named Kahapiongo, and I tried 

 to fix it by bearings. On nearing the islands of that name, I 

 found them quite small, with about half a dozen people on 

 them. 



The guides were never able to name a place until close to it, 

 , and had very little conception of tlie lay of the land they had 

 coasted along many times. Their local knowledge is wonder- 

 fully good, but they seem incapable of grasjjing any thing 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 and sit- 



