A SLAVE MURDERED. 



161 



temperature, and causing general sickness. On the 

 29th May we pitched at Uyonwa, a little settlement of 

 Wabuha, who have already raised crops of sweet 

 potatoes ; if they have the sense to avoid keeping cattle, 

 the only attraction to the robber Watuta, they may 

 once more convert the sad waste of Uhha, a wilderness 

 where men are now wolves to one another, into a land 

 smiling with grains and fruits. Beyond Uyonwa we 

 hurried over " neat-tongue " hills, separated by green 

 swamps and black rivulets, with high woody banks, over 

 jungle paths thick with spear and tiger grass, brambly 

 bush and tall growths of wild arrowroot, and over a 

 country for the most part rough and rugged, with here 

 and there an acacia-barren, a bamboo-clump, or a lone 

 Palmyra. Approaching the Rusugi River, which we 

 forded on the 1st June at the upper or Parugerero 

 passage ; the regular succession of ridge and swamp 

 gave way to a dry, stony, and thorny slope, rolling with 

 an eastward decline. We delayed for an hour at the 

 Salt-pass, to lay in a supply of the necessary, and the 

 temptation to desert became irresistible. Muhabanya, 

 the " slavey " of the establishment, ran away, carrying 

 off his property and my hatchet. The Jemadar was 

 rendered almost daft by the disappearance of half of his 

 six slaves. A Mnyamwezi porter placed his burden — 

 it was a case of Cognac and vinegar, deeply regretted ! — 

 upon the ground, and levanted. Two other porters lost 

 their way, and disappeared for some days ; their com- 

 rades, standing in awe of the Wavinza, would not ven- 

 ture in search of them. The Kirangozi or Mnyamwezi 

 guide, who had accompanied the Expedition from the 

 coast, remained behind, because his newly-purchased 

 slave-girl had become foot-sore, and unable to advance ; 

 finding the case hopeless, he cut off her head, lest of his 



VOL. II. M 



