BREAKAGE OF INSTRUMENTS. 



169 



gara, peeped from afar out of the forest nooks on the 

 distant hill-folds. The people are rich in flocks and 

 grain, but a sad experience has taught them to shun 

 intercourse with all strangers, Arabs and Wasawahili, 

 Wamrima and Wanyamwezi. In happier days the road 

 was lined with large villages, of which now not a trace 

 remains. 



A Boiling Point Thermometer by Cox, the gift of 

 Lieut. -Colonel Hamerton, and left with him by Captain, 

 now Admiral Smyth, F. R. G. S., who had used it in mea- 

 suring the Andes, had been accidentally broken by my 

 companion at Cha K'henge. Arrived at Rufuta, I found 

 that a second B. P. by Newman, and a Bath-Thermo- 

 meter by the same maker, had been torn so violently 

 from their box that even the well-soldered handles were 

 wrenched off. But a few days afterwards our third 

 B. P. was rendered useless by the carelessness of Gae- 

 tano. Thus, of the only three really accurate hypso- 

 metrical instruments which we possessed, — the Baro- 

 meter had come to grief, and no aneroid had been sent 

 from Bombay — not one was spared to reach the Lake. 

 We saved, however, two Bath- Thermometers marked 

 Newman, and Johnson and Co., Bombay, which did good 

 service, and one of which was afterwards corrected by 

 being boiled at sea-level. I may here observe that on 

 such journeys, where triangulation is impossible, and 

 where the delicate aneroid and the Mountain Barometer 

 can scarcely be carried without accident,the thermometer 

 is at present the traveller's stand-by. It abounds, how- 

 ever, in elements of error. The elasticity of the glass, 

 especially in a new instrument, causes the mercury to 

 subside below the graduated scale. The difference of 

 level in a covered " shaving-pot" and in an open pan 

 exposed to the wind, will sometimes amount to 1° F. — 



