DEPARTURE FROM SA'ADANI. 



281 



operation would not pay, commercially' speaking, 

 though every hand might produce, as it has been 

 calculated he can, 12 to 15 lbs. per diem. Will- 

 ingly, therefore, as I would have won that high- 

 est of meeds, the gratitude of my fellow-country- 

 men by reducing the price of coach-varnish, I 

 had fairly to confess that it was beyond my 

 powers. The sole remedy is Time— perhaps an 

 occasional East African expedition might be ad- 

 hibited to advantage. 



As regards the limestone band, of which I 

 had forwarded specimens from the Somali coun- 

 try, no traces were found till after leaving the 

 modern corallines and sandstones of the coast 

 which possibly overlie it. Our march to the 

 Usagara mountains (5000 feet high) was more 

 fortunate : a fossil bulimus was picked up in 

 the Western counterslope of those Eastern 

 Ghauts, about 3200 feet above sea-level, and cal- 

 careous nodules of weather-worn ' Kunker ' were 

 remarked in more than one place. Captain Speke 

 (Journal, chap, ii.) afterwards saw at Kidunda of 

 Uzaramo on the left of the Kingani valley ' pi- 

 solithic limestone in which marine fossils were 

 observable.' 



Nothing of interest now remained for me at 

 Sa'adani. Before earliest dawn, when Venus 



