168 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



Eufuta. This main-drain of the lower gradients carries 

 off, according to the guides, the waters of the high 

 ground around it into the Mgeta. The bed, which 

 varies from three to sixteen feet in breadth, serpentines 

 abruptly through the hills : its surface is either deep 

 sand or clay, sopped with water, which near the head 

 becomes a thin fillet, ankle-deep, now sweet, then salt: the 

 mud is tinged in places with a solution of iron, showing, 

 when stagnant, prismatic and iridescent tints. Where 

 narrowest, the tall grasses of the banks meet across the 

 gut, which, after a few yards of short, sharp winding, 

 opens out again. The walls are in some parts earth, in 

 others blocks of gray syenite, which here and there en* 

 cumber the bed : on the right, near the end of the stage, 

 the hills above seem to overhang the Fuimara in almost 

 perpendicular masses of sandstone, from whose chinks 

 spring the gnarled roots of tall trees corded with creepers, 

 overgrown with parasites; and hung with fruits like foot- 

 balls, dangling from twines sometimes thirty feet long. 

 The lower banks, where not choked with rush, are over- 

 grown with the brightest verdure, and with the feathery 

 bamboo rising and falling before the wind. The corpses 

 of porters were even more numerous than on the yester : 

 our Muslems passed them with averted faces and with 

 the low u la haul! " of disgust, and a decrepid old 

 Mnyamwezi porter gazed at them and wept for himself. 

 About 2 p.m., turning abruptly from the bed, we crawled 

 up a short stony steep strewed with our asses and their 

 loads ; and reaching the summit of a dwarf cone near 

 the foot of the "Goma Pass," we found the usual out- 

 lying huts for porters dying of small-pox, and an old 

 kraal, which we made comfortable for the night. In the 

 extensive prospect around, the little beehive villages of 

 the Wakaguru and the Wakwivi, sub-tribes of the Wasa- 



