DANGER OF INSTRUMENTS. 



225 



by discipline, has to overcome all the troubles, 

 hardships, and perils of savage warfare. He 

 must devote himself to feeding, diilling, and 

 showing his men the use of arms, and to the 

 conduct of a caravan, as well as study the baro- 

 meter, and measm'e lunar distances. The ^lis- 

 sionaries, and all those best acquainted with the 

 country, did not approve of our making observ- 

 ations at Usumbara. The sight of an instru- 

 ment suo?opests to barbarians that the strano^er is 

 bringing down the sun, stopping the rain, breed- 

 ing a pestilence, or bewitching the land ; and the 

 dazzle of a bmss instrument awakes savage cu- 

 pidity. Such operations are sometimes impossi- 

 ble, and often, as in Xorth Africa, they are highly 

 unadvisable. The climate and petite sante, to 

 say nothing of catarrh and jungle fever, also rob 

 man of energy as well as of health : he cannot, 

 if he would, collect shells and beetles, whilst the 

 lightest geodesical labom^s not unfrequently, as 

 these pages show, end badly. 



The rainy season had fau4y set in at Fuga, 

 though the half of February had not elapsed. 

 Heavy clouds rolled up from the South- West, and 

 during om* two days and nights upon the hills 

 the weather was a succession of drip, drizzle, and 

 drench. In vain we looked for a star — we were 



VOL. II. 15 



