92 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



drogen, and in some parts the traveller might fancy a 

 corpse to be hidden behind every bush. To this sad 

 picture of miasma the firmament is a fitting frame : a 

 wild sky, whose heavy purple nimbi, chased by raffales 

 and chilling gusts, dissolve in large-dropped showers ; or 

 a dull, dark grey expanse, which lies like a pall over the 

 world. In the finer weather the atmosphere is pale and 

 sickly ; its mists and vapours seem to concentrate the 

 rays of the oppressive " rain-sun. " The sensation 

 experienced at once explains the apathy and indolence, 

 the physical debility, and the mental prostration, that 

 are the gifts of climates which moist heat and damp cold 

 render equally unsalubrious and uncomfortable. That 

 no feature of miasma might be wanting to complete the 

 picture, filthy heaps of the rudest hovels, built in holes 

 in the jungle, sheltered their few miserable inhabitants, 

 whose frames are lean with constant intoxication, and 

 whose limbs, distorted by ulcerous sores, attest the 

 hostility of Nature to mankind. Such a revolting scene 

 is East Africa from central K'hutu to the base of the 

 Usagara Mountains. 



Running through this fetid flat the path passed on the 

 left sundry shallow salt-pits which, according to the 

 Arabs, are wet during the dry and dry during the wet 

 season. Presently after breaking through another fence 

 of holcus, whose cane was stifFer than the rattans of an 

 Indian jungle, we entered, and found lodgings in Ba- 

 kera, a pretty little hamlet ringed with papaws and 

 plantains, upon which the doves disported themselves. 

 Here, on our return in 1859, a thick growth of grass 

 waved over the ground-marks of hearth and roof-tree. 

 The African has a superstitious horror of stone walls ; he 

 is still a semi-nomade, from the effects of the Wander- 

 trieb, or man's vagabond instinct, uncurbed by the 



