DISCOVERY OF THE VICTORIA N'YANZA. 45 



expressly to serve me, and were willing to do any- 

 thing I wished. The village chief offered me a goat ; 

 but as it came at the last moment before starting, I 

 declined it. To-day's track lay for the first half of 

 the way over a jungly depression, where we saw 

 ostriches, flonikans, and the small Saltiana antelopes ; 

 but as their shyness did not allow of an open ap- 

 proach, I amused myself by shooting partridges. 

 During the remainder of the way, the caravan 

 threaded between villages and cultivation lying in 

 small valleys, or crossed over low hills, accomplishing 

 a total distance of twelve miles. Here we put up at 

 a village called Ukumbi, occupied by the Walas- 

 wanda tribe. 



AVe set out at 6 A.M. on the 2d, and travelled thir- 

 teen miles by a tortuous route, sometimes close by the 

 creek, at other times winding between small hills, the 

 valleys of which were thickly inhabited by both agri- 

 cultural and pastoral people. Here some small peren- 

 nial streams, exuding from springs by the base of 

 these Irills, meander through the valleys, and keep 

 all vegetable life in a constant state of verdant fresh- 

 ness. The creek still increases in width as it extends 

 northward, and is studded with numerous small rocky 

 island hills, covered with brushwood, which, standing 

 out from the bosom of the deep-blue waters, reminded 

 me of a voyage I once had in the Grecian Archi- 

 pelago. The route also being so diversified with hills, 

 afforded fresh objects of attraction at every turn ; and 



