IRON-SMELTERS AT KISUGA. 25 



of its elevated site is one of the best and healthiest which 

 the Government possess here. The banana plantations far 

 and near supply it with food. Unfortunately the want of 

 rain this year has prevented all fruit from thriving. Red 

 amaranthus and lovely grass lilies beautify the surroundings, 

 winter crows (Corvus sca/pulatus) and small vultures sit on 

 the trees waiting for food, while guinea-fowls and turtle doves 

 approach quite close to the station. 



Near the enclosure a smithy is erected, in which a native 

 makes molut (shovels), and occasionally a spear-head or a 

 knife, out of the iron smelted here. Two earthenware vessels, 

 in form like flattened retorts open at the top, are covered with 

 a piece of skin loosely stretched over them, in the middle of' 

 which a hollow stick is fixed and made air-tight. These 

 are the bellows ; and the stream of air produced by the pulling 

 up and pushing down of the stick is forced through a wide 

 clay pipe into the fire made in a shallow hollow in the ground. 

 A large lump of compact iron serves as an anvil. The iron 

 that I saw was of very good quality. 



Intercourse with the natives in all these newly established 

 stations is naturally very limited, and therefore the collection 

 of notes and information, as well as the observation of their 

 customs, is hardly to be thought of. The language of these 

 districts is Magiingo, which appears to be spoken also by the 

 Umiro. 



We had now only to visit Mruli, the most easterly station 

 in the district at present occupied, and there our final pre- 

 parations for a march into the interior were to be made. 

 It may sound strange when I say "the interior," for Mruli 

 is situated in lat. i° 37' 43" N. Thanks to Gordon Pasha's 

 eminent talent of organisation ; thanks to his three years' 

 really superhuman exertions and labours in a climate which 

 very few have hitherto been able to withstand ; thanks to 

 his energy, which no hindrances were able to damp, the 

 whole immense country from the 9th to the 1st degree (Sobat 

 to Mruli) is so well organised and so entirely secure that a 

 single traveller can wander through the length and breadth of 

 it with all the comfort that is here attainable, and can carry on 

 his studies in peace. Arms and ammunition, except for pur- 



