60 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



porary guard had determined not to proceed beyond 

 Kiranga-Ranga, and this desertion was intended as a 

 preliminary to others by which the party would have lost 

 two-thirds of its strength. I at once summoned the 

 Jemadars, and wrote in their presence a letter reporting 

 the conduct of their men to the dreaded Balyuz, the 

 consul, who was supposed to be still anchored off Kaole. 

 Seeing the bastinado in prospect, the Jemadar Yaruk 

 shouldered his sabre, slung his shield over his arm, set 

 out in pursuit of the fugitives, and soon succeeded in 

 bringing them back. He was a good specimen of the true 

 Baloch mountaineer — a tall, gaunt, and large-boned 

 figure, with dark complexion deeply pitted by small-pox, 

 hard, high, and sun-burnt features of exceeding harsh- 

 ness; an armoury in epitome was stuck in his belt, and 

 his hand seemed never to rest but upon a weapon. 



The 4th of July was a halt at Kiranga-Ranga. Two 

 asses had been lost, the back-sinews of a third had been 

 strained, and all the others had been so wearied by their 

 inordinate burdens, to which on the last march the meat 

 of a koodoo, equal in weight to a young bullock, had 

 been superadded, that a rest was deemed indispensable. 

 I took the opportunity of wandering over and of pro- 

 specting the country. The scene was one of admirable 

 fertility; rice, maize, and manioc grew in the rankest 

 and richest crops, and the uncultivated lands bore the 

 Corindah bush (Carissa Carandas), the salsaparilla vine, 

 the small whitish-green mulberry (the Morus alba of 

 India), and the crimson flowers of the Rosel. In the 

 lower levels near the river rose the giants of the forest. 

 The Mparamusi shot up its tall head, whose bunchy 

 tresses rustled in the breeze when all below was still. The 

 stately Msufi, a Bombax or silk- cotton tree, showed as 

 many as four or five trunks, each two to three feet in 



