ADIEU TO UGOGO. 



279 



dismissing the man, who obviously stood in fear of death, 

 with his tobacco and hoes duly counted back to him. To- 

 wards the end of that long march I saw with pleasure the 

 kindly face of Seedy Bombay, who was returning to me 

 in hot haste, leading an ass, and carrying a few scones 

 and hard-boiled eggs. Mounting, I resumed my way, 

 and presently arrived at the confines of Mdaburu, 

 where, under a huge calabash, stood our tent, amidst a 

 kraal of grass boothies, surrounded by a heaped-up ridge 

 of thorns. 



Mdaburu is the first important district in the land 

 of Uyanzi,which, beginning from Western K'hok'ho, ex- 

 tends as far as Tura, the eastern frontier of Unyam- 

 wezi-land. It is a fertile depression of brick-red earth, 

 bisected by a broad, deep, and sandy Fiumara, which, trend- 

 ing southwards, supplies from five pits water in plenty 

 even during the driest season. It is belted on all sides 

 by a dense jungle, over whose dark brown line appeared 

 the summits of low blue cones, and beyond them long 

 streaks of azure ridge, beautified by distance into the sem- 

 blance of a sea. We were delayed two days at this, the 

 fourth and westernmost district of Ugogo. It was ne- 

 cessary to lay in a week's provision for the party— ever 

 a tedious task in these regions, but more especially in the 

 dead of winter —moreover, the Sultan Kibuya expected 

 the settlement of his blackmail. From this man we expe- 

 rienced less than the usual incivility : by birth a Mkimbu 

 foreigner, and fearing at that time wars and rumours 

 of wars on the part of his villanous neighbour, Maguru 

 Mafupi, he contented himself with a present which may 

 be estimated at nineteen cloths, whereas the others had 

 murmured at forty and fifty. However, he abated nothing 

 of his country's pretentious pride. A black, elderly man, 

 dressed in a grimy cloth, without other ornament but 



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