188 THE LAKE KEG IONS OF CENTRAL AFEICA. 



be the greatest benefactor that Central Africa ever 

 knew. 



After about an hour's march, the narrow tunnel in the 

 jungle — it was so close that only one ass could be led 

 up and unloaded at a time — debouched upon the Mu- 

 kondokwa ford. The view was not unpleasing. The 

 swift brown stream was broadened by a branch-islet 

 in its upper bed to nearly a hundred yards, and its 

 margins were fringed with rushes backed by a 

 screen of dense verdure and tall trees which occu- 

 pied the narrow space between the water and the 

 hills. The descent and the landing-place were 

 equally bad. Slipping down the steep miry bank 

 the porters sank into the river breast-deep, causing 

 not a little damage to their loads : the ford now wetted 

 the waist then the knee, and the landing-place was a 

 kind of hippopotamus-run of thick slushy mud, floored 

 with roots and branches, snags and sawyers, and backed 

 by a quagmire rendered passable only by its matwork 

 of tough grass-canes laid by their own weight. Having 

 crossed over on our men's backs, we ascended a little 

 rise and lay down somewhat in the condition of tra- 

 velling Manes fresh from the transit of the Styx. I 

 ordered back Iudogo with a gang of porters to assist 

 Said bin Salim who was bringing up the rear : he pro- 

 mised to go but he went the wrong way — forwards. 

 Eesuming our march along the river's left or northern 

 bank, we wound along the shoulders and the bases of 

 hills, sometimes ascending the spurs of stony and jungly 

 eminences, where the paths were unusually rough and 

 precipitous, at other times descending into the stagnant 

 lagoons, the reedy and rushy swamps, and the deep 

 bogs which margin the stream. After a total of six 

 hours we reached a kraal situated upon the sloping 



