160 TAVETA AND MOUNTS KILIMANJARO AND MEEU 



anytliing but anxious for a meeting. To avoid them we de- 

 termined to make a double march the next da)^, which would 

 enable us to pass beyond the territory occupied by them. 



We started earlier than usual, and plodded on as rapidly as 

 possible in the direction of the distant fringe of vegetation 

 marking the course of the Dariama, which probably rises, under 

 the name of the Shamburay, on the south-west side of Mount 

 Meru, becoming the Dariama in its middle easterly course, 

 whilst farther on it is known as the Eonga. The Shamburay- 

 Eonga receives all the streams flowing south from Mount Meru, 

 and takes, them to the Euvu, or Pangani, which thus drains 

 the whole of the Meru and Kilimanjaro basins. 



After a march of four hours we reached the Dariama. 

 The river here was more than ] 9 yards across, and 5 or 6 

 feet deep, with a considerable volume of thick, muddy-looking 

 water. A tree flung across enabled us to make a rapid though 

 rather difficult transit, and we camped on the other side for a 

 long mid-day rest in a thicket encumbered with parasitical 

 oTowths, some of them as thick as a man's arm. 



At half-past one we started again, and skirting along the 

 base of the flat-topped Chachame mountains, at a distance of 

 from about 550 to 1,100 yards from the thicket, we reached the 

 trading station of Mikinduni at sunset. The landscape struck us 

 as peculiarly deserted and unfriendly-looking. The mountain 

 shapes were unlike any we had so far seen, the flora was more 

 varied, and we noted many new varieties. We were at first 

 surprised, but we soon saw that everything was accounted for 

 by the difference in the geological formation we were now 

 traversing ; we had left the volcanic district behind, and were 

 amongst metamorphic rocks. White limestone, now in loose 

 masses, now in compact rocks, was of frequent occurrence, still, 

 however, alternating with lava, and in the distant mountains we 

 could see ravines with sides gleaming like snow-white marble. 



