232 GONDOKORO TO AGARU. 



district. Half an hour's march over the well-made broad road, 

 on red clay, which stuck fast to our feet, brought us to Loronio, 

 a station near the hill of the same name. 



Chief Latome's village and hill lie in the centre of a slightly 

 undulating plain, enclosed towards the north and north-east 

 by the Lafit range. In all other directions, distant groups and 

 ranges of hills were visible. The soil must be uncommonly 

 fruitful, as it is capable of maintaining a considerable number 

 of Negroes. I estimated that the men capable of bearing 

 arms in Loronio were about a thousand ; this may be accepted 

 with slight modification, as the number of huts, which literally 

 cover the hill, is quite astounding. Latome claims authority 

 over thirteen other villages, many of which are larger than 

 this. I say " claims," because he does not, properly speaking, 

 belong to the great hereditary chiefs of the land (at least so 

 Chief Maye told me), but owes his great influence to his skill 

 making rain, and in a measure also to his good government. 

 In each of these villages Latome has huts and wives, whom it 

 is the duty of their respective chiefs to support. He only 

 visits the villages himself to collect tribute, which consists of 

 corn, sesame, honey, leopard-skins, cattle, and ivory. If rain is 

 needed in a village, a deputation must go to Loronio, and 

 Latome, carried on a little ankareh, and accompanied by sundry 

 porters carrying pots of mrissa (beer), repairs to the place and 

 orders the rain. 



The long high chain of the Lafit mountains, which name I 

 may give to the whole range, to save confusion, is at most three 

 hours' march from here ; it culminates in the two high peaks 

 Lafit and Ittatok. The range has in different parts many dif- 

 ferent names ; it runs in the direction of south- south-east to 

 north-north-west. Towards Tarangole, which is situated, not in 

 an easterly, but almost south-easterly direction from here, it forms, 

 with other mountains, a sort of defile, from which rise here and 

 there single peaks and hills, many of them crowned with perfectly 

 flat plateaux, on which are situated large densely inhabited villages. 



Khor Koz, the very type of a rain-torrent, flows across 

 the plain from south-east to north-west. At this time it had 

 already partially flooded the land, but in the dry season it does 

 not contain a drop of water. Deep wells have therefore to be 



