444 A DESERTED VILLAGE. 



"July 10 and 11. — Nothing to interest but the same weary 

 trudge : our food so scarce that we can only give a handful or 

 half a pound of grain to each person per day. The Masuko 

 fruit is formed, but not ripe till rains begin ; very few birds are 

 seen or heard, though there is both food and water in the many 

 grain-bearing grasses and running streams, which we cross at 

 the junction of every two ridges. A dead body lay in a hut by 

 the wayside; the poor thing had begun to make a garden by the 

 stream, probably in hopes of living long enough (two months 

 or so) on wild fruits to reap a crop of maize. 



"July 12. — A drizzling mist set in during the night and con- 

 tinued this morning ; we set off in the dark, however, leaving 

 our last food for the havildar and Sepoys who had not yet come 

 up. The streams are now of good size. An Arab brandy bottle 

 was lying broken in one village called Msapa. We hurried on 

 as fast as we could to the Luatize, our last stage before getting 

 to Mataka's ; this stream is rapid, about forty yards wide, waist 

 deep, with many podostemons on the bottom. The country gets 

 more and more undulating and is covered with masses of green 

 foliage, chiefly Masuko trees, which have large hard leaves. 

 There are hippopotami farther down the river on its way to the 

 Loendi. A little rice which had been kept for me I divided, 

 but some did not taste food. 



"July 13. — A good many stragglers behind, but we push on 

 to get food and send it back to them. The soil all reddish clay, 

 the roads baked hard by the sun, and the feet of many of us 

 are weary and sore : a weary march and long, for it is perpetually 

 up and down now. I counted fifteen running streams in one 

 day : they are at the bottom of the valley which separates the 

 ridges. We got to the brow of a ridge about an hour from 

 Mataka's first gardens, and all were so tired that we remained 

 to sleep ; but we first invited volunteers to go on and buy food, 

 and bring it back early next morning : they had to be pressed 

 to do this duty. 



"July 14. — As our volunteers did not come at 8 a.m., I set 

 off to see the cause, and after an hour of perpetual up and down 

 march, as I descended the steep slope which overlooks the first 

 gardens, I saw my friends start up at the apparition — they were 

 comfortably cooking porridge for themselves ! I sent men of 



