272 THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



tall palm suggested a resemblance to the valley-plains of 

 the Usagara Mountains. As night fell upon us like a 

 pall, we entered the broken red ground that limits the flat 

 westwards, and, ascending a dark ridge of broken, stony, 

 ground, and a dense thorn-bush, we found ourselves upon 

 a higher level. The asses stumbled, the men grumbled, 

 and the want of water severely tried the general 

 temper. 



From this cold jungle — the thermometer showed a 

 minimum of 54° F. — we emerged at dawn on the 

 11th October, and after three hours' driving through 

 a dense bush of various thorns, with calabashes red- 

 dened by the intense heat, and tripping upon the narrow 

 broken path that ran over rolling ground, we found the 

 porters halted at some pits full of sweet clear water. 

 Here the caravan preserved a remarkable dead silence. 

 I inquired the cause. The Coast-Arabs who accom- 

 panied us were trying an experiment, which, had it 

 failed, would have caused trouble, expense, and waste of 

 time ; they were attempting to pass without blackmail 

 the little clearing of Usek'he, which lay to the south of 

 the desert-road, and they knew that its Sultan, Ganza 

 Mikono, usually posted a party upon the low masses of 

 bristling hill hard by, to prevent caravans evading his 

 dues. As no provisions were procurable in the jungle, 

 it was judged better to proceed, and the sun was in the 

 zenith before we reached the district of K'hok'ho. We 

 halted under a spreading tree, near the head-quarter 

 village of its villanous Sultan, in an open plain of 

 millet and panicum-stubbles. Presently Kidogo, dis- 

 liking the appearance of things — the men, rushing with 

 yells of excitement from their villages, were forming a 

 dense ring around us ; the even more unmanageable old 

 women stared like sages femmes, and already a Mnyam- 



