MR. PRICE'S JOURNEY. 943 



uearer the coast than he expected, and having pushed along them for a time, 

 he suddenly turned into a gap of the hills thirty miles long, and went through 

 on comparatively level ground, with high hills on each side. The streams 

 in the valleys were little trouble ; on his return, near the end of July, they 

 were quite easy to pass. On going, one stream was deep ; two others were 

 crossed by bridges. Near the upper part of the course he found a large popu- 

 lation and herds of cattle. There was no tsetse all the way. The people 

 everywhere were hospitable and kind ; there were no gangs of slaves. Food 

 was sold at ordinary rates. The entire cost of the journey from Zanzibar to 

 Mpwapwa and back was a little over £200. 



Dr. Kirk, her Majesty's Agent and Consul-General at Zanzibar, in a de- 

 spatch to Lord Derby, dated July 27th, 1876, thus refers to Mr. Price's jour- 

 ney: — "Mr. Price's journey has been in every way successful, and he returns 

 prepared to give a most favourable report of the road, the country, and the 

 temper of the people among whom he passed. On Mr. Price's arrival, seeing 

 that he was a man of experience in African travel, and had in view a scheme 

 which, if successful, would do more than anything yet attempted to open up 

 the lake regions to legitimate trade, I obtained an interview, and strongly 

 recommended him to the Sultan of Zanzibar, and it was after careful consider- 

 ation the line of route was selected. 



" Abandoning the Bagamoyo route, the one almost universally followed 

 at present, but known to lead through a district infested by the tsetse fly, so 

 deadly to cattle, it was determined to land at Saadani, and passing through 

 Uzugua and Nguru, reach Mpwapwa on the borders of Ugogo, where the or- 

 dinary caravan route is joined, and beyond which all travellers describe the 

 country as possessing cattle and not difficult to pass through. The dangers 

 were, first, from the tsetse fly, and, secondly, from the nature of the ground, 

 for in many parts of the coast the grapes and woody jungles are practically 

 impenetrable for wagons, unless the road were first cut at great expense, and 

 again it remained to be seen whether the formidable slopes of the Usagara 

 hills that wall in this part of East Africa could be passed on suitable gradi- 

 ents. 



" Mr. Price has now determined that on this line of road there is no fly 

 country, and this he has done, not by personal observation alone — for he is 

 too experienced an African traveller to depend upon the eye in so essential a 

 matter, but he has taken with him cattle from the island of Zanzibar, and 

 safely returned to the coast with the same, passing part of the way through 

 country where cattle are now kept by the people. Again, as to the nature 

 of the road, he tells me that on the whole way there is not a place to compare 

 for difficulty with those which the colonists daily pass, and that the ordinary 

 road between Graham's Town and Algoa Bay is more difficult than that he 

 travelled in going to Ugogo. 



