166 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



with his stock statement, viz. that at the distance of 

 an hour's march there was a fine safe village full of 

 provisions, and well fitted for a halt. The hour's 

 march proved a long stage of nearly sixteen miles, over 

 a remarkably toilsome country, a foul jungle with tsetse- 

 haunted thorn-bushes, swamps, and inundated lands, 

 ending at a wretched cluster of huts, which could 

 supply nothing but a tough old hen. I was sorry to 

 part with the Arab merchant, a civil man, and a well- 

 informed, yet somewhat addicted to begging like all his 

 people. His marching freaks, however, were unendur- 

 able, dawdling at the beginning of the journey, rushing 

 through the middle, and lagging at the end. We 

 afterwards passed him on the road, of course he had 

 been delayed, and subsequently, during a long halt at 

 Unyanyembe, he frequently visited me. 



On the 17th June the caravan, after sundry difficul- 

 ties, caused by desertion, passed on to Irora the village 

 of Salim bin Salih, who this time received us hospitably 

 enough. Thence we first sighted the blue hills of Un- 

 yanyembe, our destination. The next day saw us at 

 Yombo, where, by good accident, we met a batch of seven 

 cloth-bales and one box en route to Ujiji, under charge 

 of our old enemy Salim bin Sayf of Dut'humi. My 

 complaint against " Msopora," forwarded from Zury- 

 omero, had, after Lieut. -Col. Hamerton's decease, on 

 the 5th July 1857, been- laid by M. Cochet, Consul de 

 France, before H. M. the Say y id Majid, — a fact which 

 accounts for the readiness with which our effects were on 

 this occasion delivered up, and for the non-appearance 

 of the individual in person. We also received the 

 second packet of letters which reached us during that 

 year: as usual, they w r ere full of evil news. Almost 

 every one had lost some relation or friend near and dear 



