PREPARATIONS FOR A CRUISE. 



93 



Salim, Kannena. who had been preparing for a cruise north- 

 wards, was summoned before me. He agreed to convey 

 me ; but when I asked him the conditions on which he 

 would show me the Mtoni, or river, he jumped up, dis- 

 charged a volley of oaths, and sprang from the house like 

 an enraged baboon. I was prepared for this difficulty, 

 having had several warnings that the tribes on the northern 

 shores of the Tanganyika allow no trade. But fears like 

 Kannena's may generally be bought over. I trusted, 

 therefore, to Fate, and resolved that at all costs, even if 

 reduced to actual want, we should visit this mysterious 

 stream. At length the headman yielded every point. 

 He received, it is true, an exorbitant sum. Arabs visit- 

 ing Uvira, the " ultima thule " of lake navigation, pay 

 one cloth to each of the crew ; and the fare of a single 

 passenger is a brace of coil-bracelets. For two canoes, 

 the larger sixty feet by four, and the lesser about two- 

 thirds that size, I paid thirty-three coil-bracelets, here 

 equal to sixty dollars, twenty cloths, thirty-six khete of 

 blue glass beads, and 770 ditto of white-porcelains and 

 green-glass. I also promised to Kannena a rich reward 

 if he acted up to his word ; and as an earnest I threw 

 over his shoulders a six-foot length of scarlet broad- 

 cloth, which caused his lips to tremble with joy, despite 

 his struggles to conceal it. The Nakhoda (captain) and 

 the crew in turn received, besides rations, eighty cloths, 



a region, which abounding in lakes and rivers yet sends no supplies to the 

 sea, I had prepared, at Zanzibar, a dish and a guage for the purpose of com- 

 paring the hygrometry of the African with that of the Indian rainy monsoon. 

 The instruments, however, were fated to do no work. The first portion of 

 the Masika was spent in a journey ; ensued severe sickness, and the end of 

 the rains happened during a voyage to the north of the Tanganyika. A 

 few scattered observations might have been registered, but it was judged 

 better to bring home no results, rather than imperfections which could only 

 mislead the meteorologist. 



