MSENE. 



395 



cine. They vaunt its virtues, which become apparent 

 after the unhealthy air of Kazeh, and after a delicious 

 night spent in the cool barzah, I had no reason to ques- 

 tion its reputation. I arose in the morning wonder- 

 fully refreshed, and Valentine, who had been prostrated 

 with fever throughout the day, became another man. Yet 

 the situation was apparently unpropitious ; the Gombe 

 Nullah, the main drain of this region, a line of stagnant 

 pools, belted with almost impassable vegetation, lies 

 hard by, and the background is an expanse of densest 

 jungle. 



Three short and eventless marches through thick 

 jungle, with scattered clearings, led me, on the 30th 

 December, to the district of Msene, where the dense 

 wild growth lately traversed suddenly opens out and 

 discloses to the west a broad view of admirable fertility. 

 Before entering the settlements, the caravan halted, as 

 usual, to form up. We then progressed with the usual 

 pomp and circumstance ; the noise was terrific, and the 

 streets, or rather the spaces between the houses, were 

 lined with Negroid spectators. I was led to the Tembe 

 of one Saadullah, a low-caste Msawahili, and there 

 found my companion looking but poorly. Gaetano, his 

 " boy," was so excited by the scene, that he fell down 

 in a fit closely resembling epilepsy. 



Msene, the chief Bandari of Western Unyamwezi, may 

 be called the capital of the Coast Arabs and the Wasa- 

 wahili, who, having a natural antipathy to their brethren 

 of Oman, have abandoned to them Unyanyembe and its 

 vicinity. Of late years, however, the Omani merchants, 

 having been driven from the neighbouring districts by 

 sundry murders into Msene, may at times be met there 

 to the number of four or five. The inhabitants are 

 chiefly Wasumbwa, a subtribe of the Wanyainwezi race. 



