458 
TRAVELS IN AFRICA. Chap. XXXIV. 
the government of his blind father's province, but 
had been deposed on account of his friendly disposi- 
tion towards Wandala, having married a princess of 
that country, and the management of affairs had been 
transferred to his elder brother. 
Forest and cultivated ground alternately succeeded 
each other ; a little after nine o'clock we passed on our 
left a small " riimde," or slave-village, with ground- 
nuts and holcus in the fields, and most luxuriant pas- 
ture all around. The country evidently sloped south- 
wards, and at a little distance beyond the village I 
observed the first watercourse, running decidedly in 
that direction ; on its banks the corn stood already 
four feet high. The country now became quite open 
to the east and south, and everything indicated that 
we were approaching the great artery of the country 
which I was so anxious to behold. In the distance 
to the west, a range of low hills was still observable, 
but was gradually receding. About ten o'clock we 
passed the site of a straggling but deserted village, 
called MeMgo, the inhabitants of which had likewise 
exchanged their dwelling-place in this low level 
country, for a more healthy one at the foot of the 
mountains where there is another village called K6fa, 
homonymous with that in the Marghi country; for 
this district belongs to the country of the Batta, a 
numerous tribe nearly related, as I have stated above, 
to the Marghi. All the ruins of the dwellings in 
Melago were of clay, and the rumbii or rumbiije — the 
