CAMERON'S JOURNEY INTO THE INTERIOR. 665 



his prime minister, and he was too drunk to transact any business, and so on 

 from day to day. There is no passing through Ugogo without paying tribute, 

 for, although the people do not as a rule fight, if the demand is resisted they 

 carry off all they can of their provisions and stores, destroy their houses and 

 all they leave behind, fill up their water-holes, and retreat into the jungles, 

 leaving the strangers to die of thirst and starvation, assured of being repaid 

 by the stores, which are certain to be abandoned, for any losses they may 

 themselves have incurred. This occurred two or three times when Arab cara- 

 vans have attempted to avoid paying mhongo. Soon after Moume we struck 

 Burton's route at Kanyenye, or Great Ugogo, where the same chief (Magomba) 

 reigns as was there in his time. 



"From Kanyenye we went on rising, at the end of the plain, which leads 

 up a steep wall-like range of hills to another plateau. On this plateau we 

 went through a range of hills formed of blocks and boulders of granite piled 

 about in the wildest confusion, and came to Usekhe, where we camped close 

 to the largest boulder of granite that, up to that time, I had ever seen. 

 Here again tribute, drunkenness, and delays, and then on our march to 

 Khoko, where some Wamerima are settled, and where we camped under one 

 of three enormous trees — our own caravan and others accompanying it — in 

 all, amounting to about five hundred men, camping under one tree. From 

 here was one march to Mdabaree, the last district of Ugogo, and where we 

 finished with mhongo for the time being. As we were a short way from 

 where white men had passed before, the chief's head man said we had to stop 

 till all the people had seen us ; in fact, he made a raree show of us. We now 

 entered on what used to be dreaded as Mgunda Mkali, or fiery field, but 

 which now is far easier to traverse than it was in the days of Burton and 

 Speke. After a few days we came to Jiwe la Singa, where there were almost 

 as many fantastic boulders as near Usekhe, the name of the place meaning 

 the rock of soft grass. From here we marched through a wild and uninha- 

 bited country, with much game, but very wild and scared, making longish 

 marches on account of the scarceness and badness of the water. On July 31, 

 1874, we reached the village of the chief of Urgu. Here we stopped one 

 day to buy food, as our provisions were exhausted, and for the first time, 

 camped in a village. Our tents were crowded all day long by the natives, 

 and at night we found that they had left many small but disagreeable inha- 

 bitants behind them. 



" From here to the outlying villages of Unyanyembe, was four long 

 marches through uninhabited country. At the end of the second we camped 

 at a place called Marwa, where water is only to be obtained by digging at 

 the base of a boulder, and no one is allowed to say maji — the common word 

 for water — to fire a gunf or walk by with sandals or boots, for fear of offend- 

 ing the fiend in charge of the spring, and causing him to stop the supply of 



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