A REGULAR SIROCCO 



211 



the stony ground, where no footprints were left, and then 

 separated in different directions, hunting him like game. The 

 firing of a gun a few hours later brought us all together again ; 

 he had been taken by Kharscho, and had evidently already been 

 well flogged. 



Satisfied with the result of our search, we resumed our 

 march over a dreary, treeless steppe with but a slight ascent, 

 and in three hours we reached the shade of the lofty trees by 

 the river, where our camp was pitched. Kijuma wadi Muynuru 

 now received the balance of stripes due to him, and was then 

 put in irons. 



Our camping-place, which is called Useri after the neigh- 

 bouring Jagga state of that name, was at a height of about 

 3,085 feet on the left bank of theEombo, a stream flowing from 

 Kilimanjaro in a channel with steep loamy sides some nineteen 

 to twenty-two feet high. A little higher the channel forks, and 

 at the present time both arms of the stream were dry, the water 

 oozing out of the sand near the camp. After a short southerly 

 course, the Eombo spreads out into a marshy lake, from which 

 it issues on the north as the Tzavo, and on the south as the 

 Lumi. 1 



We had to stop here two days to buy food, and it was not 

 until the second day that the mountain people came down, 

 bringing with them plentiful supplies. The weather was so 

 bad as to depress not only the spirits of our men, but our own. 

 There was a regular sirocco blowing with the strength of from 

 six to seven (Beaufort's scale), driving before it low, heavy 



1 In his First Ascent of Kilimanjaro, p. 321, Dr. Hans Meyer gives a slightly 

 different account of the Rombo and Lumi. He says : ' The north side of Mawenzi 

 forms the watershed for the Indian Ocean ... In the east rises the Rombo, which 

 at first follows a southerly course, but after spreading out into the marshy Lake 

 Rombo (Tzavo), suddenly makes a bend and flows towards the east. The Lumi 

 also rises on the same side of the peak, and flows so close to the Rombo as almost 

 to form a fork. The Lumi, however, maintains its southerly direction, and may 

 thus be said to represent the upper course of the Rufu or Pangani.' — Teans. 



p 2 



