ARRIVAL AT SORORA. 



401 



rain, the rich dark loam becomes, like the black soils of 

 Guzerat and the Deccan, a coat of viscid mire. Above is 

 a canopy of cumulus and purple nimbus, that discharge 

 their loads in copious day-long floods. The vegetation 

 is excessive, and where there is no cultivation a dense 

 matting of coarse grass, laid by wind and water and de- 

 cayed by mud, veils the earth, and from below rises a 

 clammy chill, like the thaw-cold of England, the effect of 

 extreme humidity. And, finally, the paths are mere 

 lines, pitted with deep holes, and worn by cattle 

 through the jungle. 



After an hour and thirty minutes' march I entered 

 Mb'hali, the normal cultivator's village in Western Un- 

 yamwezi; — a heap of dwarf huts like inverted birds' nests 

 surrounding a central space, and surrounded by giant 

 heaps of euphorbia or milk -bush. Tall grasses were 

 growing almost up to the door- ways, and about the set- 

 tlement were scattered papaws and plantains ; the 

 Mwongo, with its damson-like fruit, the Mtogwe or wood- 

 apple tree, and the tall solitary Palmyra, whose high 

 columnar stem, with its graceful central swell, was emi- 

 nently attractive. We did not delay at Mb'hali, whence 

 provisions had been exhausted by the markets of Msene. 

 The 11th January led us through a dense jungle upon 

 a dead flat, succeeded by rolling ground bordered with 

 low hills and covered with alternate bush and cultiva- 

 tion, to Sengati, another similar verdure-clad village of 

 peasantry, where rice and other supplies were procur- 

 able. On the 12th January, after passing over a dead 

 flat of fields and of the rankest grass, we entered rolling 

 ground in the vicinity of the Gombe Nullah, with scat- 

 tered huts upon the rises, and villages built close to the 

 dense vegetation bordering upon the stream. Sorora or 

 Solola is one of the deadliest spots in Unyamwezi ; we 



VOL. I. D D 



