IMPORTANCE OF THE NGURU DISTRICT. 945 



" The opinion which I had formed of the Nguru district as an interesting 

 and important field for missionary effort was greatly strengthened as I passed 

 through the valley. The whole valley and mountain sides are dotted over 

 with little villages, many of them within gun-shot of one another. Judging 

 from the number of villages which were visible, and the corn and sugar cane 

 fields, through the depths of which our path lay for the most part, the 

 Wanguru must be very numerous. And yet the great valley is capable of 

 sustaining five times the number. Its fertility is something marvellous : 

 much of the corn was sixteen and eighteen feet high. As to the sugar-cane 

 it was apparently almost uncontrollable — a perfect forest. The valley itself 

 is too rank in its vegetation to be suitable for live stock ; but on the moun- 

 tain sides flocks of sheep and goats are kept, and on the northern side of the 

 range horned cattle also. 



"The Nguru district is one which could not fail always to be a centre 

 of population. In addition to the wonderful fertility of the valley itself the 

 mountains are very strong, affording protection from enemies, while watftr is 

 abundant. With a clear road to the coast, and it is easily made, the Nguru 

 valley might become very important as a source of supply of cereals and 

 other products. The Wanguru are eminently an agricultural people and 

 seem to trouble themselves very little either about trade or hunting, much 

 less about marauding expeditions against their neighbours. They ara cer- 

 tainly about the most friendly and tractable people that I have ever come across 

 in Africa. It is a rare thing in Africa to find so many people within a some- 

 what small area, and yet comparatively independent of one another. We 

 cannot pass by these quiet, peace-loving, industrious tribes, who do not hap- 

 pen to be so well known in the world as those of Mosilikatse, or Sebituane, or 

 Mtesa. The quiet stay-at-home people are generally the tribes which repay 

 missionary labour most, embrace the advantages of civilisation, an J stand 

 the test of its many concomitant evils. Apart from the fact that there is 

 here already an immense population in a district capable of sustaining five 

 times the number, the position itself would be important in view of further 

 operations in the interior." 



In the tracts of uninhabited and rocky country which had now to be 

 traversed, the only break in an available wagon road was encountered. Soon, 

 however, the scene changed ; the two mountain ranges, the distance between 

 which had been gradually lessening, again separated, and the landscape be- 

 came wider and more level. 



" Emerging from the pass, we gradually rose for about four miles, when 

 they opened out to us the most cheering prospect I had yet seen in East 

 Africa. To the southward lay the great Kaguru-Usagara range, with a long 

 gorge leading up into the very heart of the great mountains, which seemed 

 piled up one behind another as far as the eye could reach. Through this 

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