290 



THE LAKE REGIONS OF CENTRAL AFRICA. 



barked previous to felling, and others have fallen pros- 

 trate, apparently from the depredations of the white 

 ant. On the 25th, after another desert march of 

 2 hrs. 20' through a flat country, where the forest 

 was somewhat deformed by bush and brake, which 

 in places narrowed the path to a mere goat-track, 

 we arrived at the third quarter of Mgunda Mk'hali. 

 "Mgongo T'hembo," or the Elephant's Back, derives 

 its name from a long narrow ridge of chocolate-coloured 

 syenite, outcropping from the low forest lands around 

 it ; the crest of the chain is composed of loose rocks 

 and large detached boulders. Like the other inhabited 

 portions of Mgunda Mk'hali, it is a recent clearing ; 

 numerous "black-jacks," felled trees, and pollarded 

 stumps still cumber the fields. The ''Elephant's Back" 

 is, however, more extensive and better cultivated than 

 any of its neighbours, — Mdaburu alone excepted, — 

 and water being abundant and near the surface, 

 it supports an increasing population of mixed Wa- 

 kimbu and Wataturu, who dwell in large substantial 

 Tembe, and live by selling their surplus holcus, maize, and 

 fowls to travellers. They do not, like the Wakimbu of 

 Jiwe la Mkoa, refuse entrance to their villages, but they 

 receive the stranger with the usual niggard guest-rites of 

 the slave-path, and African-like, they think only of what 

 is to be gained by hospitality. Here I halted for a day to 

 recruit and to lay in rations. The length of the stages 

 had told upon the men ; Bombay had stumped himself, 

 several of the sons of Eamji, and two of Said bin 

 Salim's children were unable to walk; the asses, throwing 

 themselves upon the ground, required to be raised w^ith 

 the stick, and all preferred rest even to food. Mboni, 

 one of the sons of Eamji, carried off a slave girl from 



