KIKUMBULIU 



315 



only a little brackish water. We saw a good deal of game, 

 including zebras, small kudu antelopes, and rhinoceroses. The 

 Count shot one of the last-named in full flight, the great creature 

 falling down dead like a hare. This was the ninety-ninth and 

 last rhinoceros killed during our Expedition. Two others 

 charged our cattle, scattering them in all directions, but only 

 securing one cow, whilst another dashed back to her home in 

 Zaovi. 



The transit of the uninhabited tract took us two days, 

 during which we were in sight not only of the symmetrical Julu 

 and picturesque Theuka mountains, but also of the two peaks 

 of Kilimanjaro, which appeared to increase in height as we 

 advanced further southward. 



On September 19 we reached the first settlements of Ki- 

 kumbuliu, situated at the edge of a group of well-wooded hills, 

 breaking the monotony of the otherwise flat neighbourhood. A 

 little before we got here we had passed an unfelled baobab-tree, 

 the first we had seen since we left Kilimanjaro, and had noted 

 with yet more surprise the sudden transition frop_i the white 

 metamorphic sand, gneiss debris, and slabs of rock which had 

 hitherto strewn the ground, to rough, blistered lava, with sharp, 

 jagged and unweathered surface, yet here and there dotted with 

 already venerable trees. Long did we puz2le over the source of 

 this volcanic debris ; it seemed quite impossible that the neigh- 

 bouring Julu mountains could contain the crater from which it 

 had been flung forth, and hot until we reached the southern 

 termination of the range was the mystery solved. 



Kikumbuliu extends to the Kambu stream, which is generally 

 dried up, and the villages and plantations are mostly hidden in 

 the bush and difficult of access, so that we saw but little of 

 them. This is the most poverty-stricken district of Ukambani, 

 for the soil is poor, harvests are often very scanty through 

 want of rain, and the inhabitants continually suffer from famine. 



