268 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



As the former would have caused an inevitable delay I 

 preferred the latter, justly thinking that during this, 

 the travelling-season, we should not long be detained. 



On the 11th January, 1859, a large party of Wan- 

 yanwezi, journeying from the interior to the coast, 

 bivouacked in the village. I easily persuaded Muhembe, 

 the Mtongi or leader, to make over to me the services 

 of nine of his men, and lest the African mind might 

 conceive that in dismissing the last gang cloth or beads 

 had been an object, I issued to these new porters seventy- 

 two cloths, as much as if they had carried packs from 

 Unyanwezi to the coast. On the 14th January, 1859, 

 we received Mr. Apothecary Frost's letters, drugs, and 

 medical comforts, for which we had written to him in 

 July 1857. The next day saw us fording the warm 

 muddy waters of the Mgeta, which was then 100 feet 

 broad : usually knee-deep, it rises after a few showers 

 to the breast, and during the heavy rains which had 

 lately fallen it was impassable. We found a little 

 village on the left bank, and there we sat down patiently 

 to await, despite the trouble inflicted by a host of dimi- 

 nutive ants, who knew no rest by day or night, the arrival 

 of another caravan to complete our gang. The medical 

 comforts so tardily received from Zanzibar fortified us, 

 however, to some extent against enemies and incon- 

 veniences ; we had aether- sherbet and aether-lemonade, 

 formed by combining a wine-glass of the spirit with a 

 quant, suff. of citric acid ; and when we wanted a 

 change the villagers supplied an abundance of Pombe 

 or small beer. 



On the 17th Jan. a numerous down-caravan entered 

 the settlement which we occupied, and it proved after 

 inquiry to be one of which I had heard often and much. 

 The chiefs, Sulayman bin Rashid el Riami, a coast-Arab, 



