I860.] BEX ALI ENLISTED AS GUIDE. 17 



and laughed when they remarked that they could drink it 

 in secret but not openly ; they have not, however, introduce I 

 it as an article of trade, as we Christians have done on the 

 West Coast. 



6th April. — We made a short march round to the south- 

 west side of the Lake, and spent the night at a village 

 in that direction. There are six villages dotted round the 

 inner harbour, and the population may amount to 250 or 

 300 souls — coast Arabs and their slaves ; the southern por- 

 tion of the harbour is deep, from ten to fourteen fathoms, 

 but the north-western part is shoal and rocky. Very little 

 is done in the Avay of trade; some sorghum, sem-sem seed, 

 gum-copal, and orchilla weed, constitute the commerce of 

 the port : I saw two Banian traders settled here. 



7th April. — Went about south from Kindany with a 

 Somalie guide, named Ben Ali or Bon Ali, a good-looking- 

 obliging man, who was to get twenty dollars to take us up 

 to Ngomano. Our path lay in a valley, with well-wooded 

 heights on each side, but the grass towered over our heads, 

 and gave the sensation of smothering, whilst the sun beat 

 down on our heads very fiercely, and there was not a breath 

 of air stirring. Not understanding camels, I had to trust 

 to the sepoys who overloaded them, and before we had 

 accomplished our march of about seven miles they were 

 knocked up. 



8th April. — We spent the Sunday at a village called 

 Nyangedi. Here on the evening of the 7th April our 

 buffaloes and camels were first bitten by the tsetse fly." 

 We had passed through some pieces of dense jungle which, 

 though they offered no obstruction to foot-passengers, but 

 rather an agreeable shade, had to be cut for the tall camels, 



* Those who have read the accounts given by African travellers will 

 remember that the bites inflicted by two or three of these small flies 

 will usually lay the foundation of a sickness which destroys oxen, horses, 

 and dogs in a few weeks. 



VOL. I. C 



