THE WAAtI VALLEY. 965 



" 18th. The men were willing to march. Robertson was nearly well, 

 and decided to ride the saddle-donkey. We tried to get men to carry me in 

 a hammock, but none could be got, as just before there had been a fight be- 

 tween the village we were at and the one to which we were going. So a pack 

 donkey was cleared for me, and a blanket folded and tied on the pack for a 

 saddle. When we got to the gate of the village at which we stopped, I was 

 lifted off the donkey quite exhausted. I had a very bad night. 



11 21st. We set off early this morning — I on the pack donkey again. I 

 was much better and stronger. The road was over several hilly ridges run- 

 ning down to the Wami, and covered with forest. After a march of about ten 

 miles we reached the village of Wedigumba, in the valley of the Wami, and 

 about a quarter of a mile from the river. The Wami here looks like a river 

 that would be navigable to a steam-launch ; it was about sixty yards wide, 

 flowing with a strong muddy current about two miles and a half an hour ; 

 its course was due east. The banks of the river are very pretty ; tall trees, 

 covered with enormous creepers, overhang the stream, dipping their boughs 

 in its water ; the pretty jesamine grows plentifully, filling the air with its 

 scent. Here and there are little islands covered with a tall, graceful grass, 

 and a little bright-green palm. One tree I have especially noticed here; it 

 has bark something like the plane-tree, or.ly whiter, and has a spreading head 

 of dark foliage. It grows perfectly straight, without a branch till near the 

 top. One I saw must have been eighty or ninety feet to the first branch, 

 and as straight as an arrow. 



l '22nd. We started about half past-seven and proceeded up the Wami 

 valley. The character of the country was completely changed, being a broad, 

 flat, open valley, with very few trees except on the river bank, and these few 

 mimosas and acacias. The valley is evidently a swamp during the rainy 

 season, but now it was dry enough. After three and a half hours' march we 

 stopped at a miserable village, called Mbuni, consisting of three or four huts. 

 I was quite well again. 



" 2-ith. We started this morning at seven, and soon left the valley of the 

 Wami, passing through hilly forest, with here and there huge masses of syen- 

 ite cropping up. At one place I saw a beautiful crimson azalea in full flower 

 growing by the road side. We encamped in the forest, having gone about 

 eleven miles and a half — our longest march. There was no water anywhere 

 near the camp, so the natives made holes in the ground in a hollow near, and 

 these were soon filled with a liquid very much resembling soapsuds, and with 

 this we had to be contented. The Nguru hills, which were abreast of us at 

 the last village, were now behind us : these hills are wrongly placed in Speke's 

 map, being put much too near the coast. We had rain at night. 



" 25th. The road lay for some way through forest, and we passed a fine 

 bold mass of rock, two hundred or three hundred feet high, apparently of a 



