188 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFEICA. 



starvation. A single large body which had lost fifty of 

 its number by small-pox, had passed us but yesterday on 

 the road, and the sight of their deceased comrades recall- 

 ed to our minds terrible spectacles ; men staggering on 

 blinded by disease, and mothers carrying on their backs 

 infants as loathsome objects as themselves. The wretches 

 would not leave the path, every step in their state of 

 failing strength was precious ; he who once fell would 

 never rise again ; no village would admit death into its 

 precincts, no relation nor friend would return for them, 

 and they would lie till their agony was ended by the 

 raven and vulture, the Fisi and the fox. Near every 

 Khambi or Kraal I remarked detached tents which, 

 according to the guides, were set apart for those seized 

 with the fell disease. Under these circumstances, as 

 might be expected, several of our party caught the in- 

 fection ; they lagged behind and probably threw them- 

 selves into some jungle, for the path when revisited 

 showed no signs of them. 



We spent 4 hrs. 30' in weary marching, occa- 

 sionally halting to reload the asses that threw their 

 packs. Near the Mgeta River, which was again 

 forded six times, the vegetation became tall and thick, 

 grasses obstructed the path, and in the dense jungle on 

 the banks of the stream, the Cowhage (Dolichos pruriens,) 

 and stiff reeds known as the "wild sugar-cane," an- 

 noyed the half-naked porters. Thus bounded and ap- 

 proached by muddy and slippery, or by steep and stony 

 inclines, the stream shrank to a mountain torrent, in 

 places hardly fifty feet broad ; the flow was swift, the 

 waters were dyed by the soil a ruddy brown, and the 

 bed was sandy and sometimes rocky with boulders of 

 primitive formation, streaked with lines of snow-white 

 quartz. Near the end of the marsh we ascended a short 



