196 



THE UPLANDS. 



line ; the second will be the red land with rises 

 and falls, but gently upsloping to the west, whilst 

 the third and last will be the granite and sand- 

 stone flanks of TJsumbara. After a few minutes' 

 march we crossed by a bridge composed of a 

 fallen tree the Luangera (miscalled Lucre by Herr 

 Augustus Petermann) : this deep sullen affluent 

 of the E;uf u, 23 to 24 feet broad, drains the Nortli- 

 Eastern Bamburri mountains. Then stretching 

 over the grassy expanse, we skirted two smaU red 

 cones, the Ngua outliers of the high Vugiri range. 

 Like its eastern neighbour Usagama, this buttress of 

 TJsumbara is the normal precipice with bluff sides 

 of rock, weU wooded on the summit, and looking 

 a proper place for ibex : of this animal, a well- 

 marked species (C. Walie), with thick and promin- 

 ently ribbed horns, has been found in the snowy 

 heights of Abyssinia, and it probably extends to 

 the gigantic peaks of the ^thiopic Olympus. The 

 Vugiri forms part of the escarpment line separat- 

 ing the higlilands from the river plain to the south. 

 The people assured us that the summit is a fertile 

 rolling plateau which supports an abundant popu- 

 lation of Washenzi, serfs, and clients, subject to 

 King Kimwere. 



We then entered upon cultivated ground, 

 which seemed a garden after the red waste below 



