548 
TEAYELS m AFRICA. Chap. XXXVII. 
heads, poured down violent torrents of rain, so that 
in a few moments the whole country looked like a 
lake, and our progress was excessively difficult. At 
length, after an hour and a half, in the most un- 
comfortable state we reached the village Kiryiimmuwa, 
where I was quartered in a rather magnificent but as 
yet unfinished hut of clay, and endeavoured to dry 
my wet clothes as well as I could. 
We were now only one day's march from Kiikawa ; 
and we started early the next morning, in order to 
reach home before night. The neighbourhood of the 
capital had been sufficiently indicated already during 
the last day's march by the dum-bushes, which, with 
the melancholy Asclepias gigantea, might well de- 
corate the scutcheon of Kukawa — with more justice, 
indeed, than the kiika, or monkey-bread tree, from 
which the name was taken, but of which but a few 
poor stunted specimens are to be seen in the courtyard 
of the palace in the eastern town. 
We had scarcely gone a mile when we met the first 
body of Shiiwa, men and women, who were returning 
with their unloaded pack-oxen from the great Monday 
market of the capital ; and then the string of market- 
people on their way to their respective homes was 
almost uninterrupted. While our people followed 
the road, Billama and I turned off a little to the left, 
in order to pay a visit to the mayor of Miinghono 
and obtain a cool drink ; for since I had had the fever 
I suffered greatly from thirst, and the water from the 
wells in general, as preserving a mean temperature 
