POGOGK'S A CCO UNT OF TEE GO UNTR Y. 799 



" Dear Parents — I told you I think it will be December before we reach 

 Ujiji, because Colonel Gordon is going to lend us a steamer as far as she is 

 any use, and some men as far as Ujiji. The weather on the road was very 

 changeable, which is the cause of so much illness. You think it thunders 

 very heavy in England, but it is nothing to this. It shakes everything fear- 

 fully, and when it rains it is a complete deluge. It is now the wet season. 

 Between the showers the sun is enough to burn the hair off your head ; but 

 we don't have to be out. I have had three months' rest, with the best of food; 

 but it is not like the food in England. Rice is a great luxury. There is 

 plenty of meat — goats, sheep, and bullocks — but it does not do to eat too much 

 meat. You can buy two sheep for a piece of cloth six feet by three. The 

 cloth is sheeting. Money is of no use — beads, cloth, and shells. For one 

 strand of beads, which cost one farthing at home, you will get about one gallon 

 of sweet potatoes. Bananas not very plentiful here. We get plenty of good 

 fish. 



" The natives of this part do nothing but lie and walk about all day. 

 The women till the ground. The men wear strings of shells around their 

 arms and a goatskin slung across their shoulders. That is a fine dress; 

 but most of them are quite naked, but none without a weapon of defence. 

 They dance and sing, and get drunk on their beer, called pombe. This 

 village belongs to the Sultan of Zanzibar, and there is one man, a slave of 

 his, called Songoria. During the time Mr. S. was away I had several pre- 

 sents, such as rice and sheep. I took food with him, and it is a great honour 

 to a black man to feed with the Mosonga, or white man. Can't get on with 

 the language much. Mr. S. can speak it as well as he can speak English; 

 but there is fresh lingo about every twenty miles, which all our men cannot 

 understand. The captain of our people can talk all of them. He is such 

 a nice man : he is like a father. When we were in a desert, he went twelve 

 miles among wild beasts for water for the white men, a turn I shall never 

 forget. I dreamed the other night I was at home eating fine things, but I 

 awoke and found myself in Central Africa. We have been four thousand 

 nine hundred and seventy-five feet above the sea. We are now one thou- 

 sand three hundred and eight. That is the position of the lake. It is splen- 

 did water here, which is very healthy. 



"This is an awful country to forget; you lose all understanding. If 

 you want to remember anything you must write it down. I am sure poor 

 Ted's death was not in my mind one hour. It is the way with everybody. 

 Of course a thought crossed my mind very often, but not to think of it. The 

 Lord gave me strength to bear with it. There are so many changes that you 

 can't think of everything. My dear parents, I am not certain of this letter 

 reaching you from here, so that I will not write to any one else until we get 

 to Uganda. If this should get home first, you must send it round the family. 

 If I write to one and not the other, it will not be right ; but I will write again 



