40 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



meat amounting almost to a frenzy. The sandstone 

 in this region is highly impregnated with iron, and 

 smelters do a good business; indeed, the iron for 

 nearly all the tools and cutlery that are used in this 

 division of Eastern Africa is found and manufactured 

 here. It is the Brummagem of the land, and has not 

 only rich but very extensive iron-fields stretching 

 many miles north, east, and west. I brought some 

 specimens away. Cloth is little prized in this especi- 

 ally bead country, and I had to pay the ridiculous 

 sum of one dhoti kiniki for one pot of honey and one 

 pot of ghee (clarified butter). 



The caravan started at 6 A.M. on the 30th, and tra- 

 velled four miles northwards, amidst villages and culti- 

 vation. From this point, on facing to the left, I could 

 discern a sheet of water about four miles from me, 

 which ultimately proved to be a creek, and the most 

 southern point of the great N'yanza, which, as I have 

 said before, the Arabs described to us as the Ukerewe 

 sea. We soon afterwards descended into a grassy and 

 jungly depression, and arrived at a deep, dirty, viscid 

 nullah (a watercourse that only runs in wet weather), 

 draining the eastern country into the southern end of 

 the creek. To cross this (which I will name Jordan for 

 future reference) was a matter of no small difficulty, 

 especially for the donkeys, whose fording seemed 

 quite hopeless, until the jemadar, assisted by two 

 other Belooches, with blows and threats made the 

 lazy pagazis work, and dragged them through the 



