392 Wanderings in Eastern Africa, 
would suit him better than to get me out of the 
country with all speed. This was the more annoying 
as he had secured the co-operation of my own guide 
in his intrigues. My difficulties with Mandara had 
been created chiefly by the mutual scheming of these 
men. However, I could do nothing with them as yet 
but watch them closely. 
Towards the close of the day I was able, for the 
first time since reaching Chaga, to look about me, 
and I took a stroll. How beautifully green every- 
thing looked ! and what a contrast to the desert 
below ! Here everything seemed to grow spon- 
taneously, and to revel in its growth ; there all was 
barrenness and death. Chaga is a garden. Upon 
every high mountain, and upon every high hill, are 
rivers and streams of water." The sun pours down 
its sevenfold brightness, warming into existence 
myriads of plants and trees, and these agents being 
ever at work, create a landscape as rich as it is charm- 
ing, and as perpetual as the agents themselves — the 
result being a never-ending spring. 
" Here all products and all plants abound, 
Sprung from the fruitful genius of the ground." 
Imagine my delight after an absence from home of 
nine years to find blackberries, ripe and ripening, 
growing on the hedges at Moche as plentifully as I 
had ever seen them growing on the hedge-rows in 
England ! 
On the 9th the mange came to my tent early and 
stayed long. He was very good-tempered, chatty, 
and communicative. He mapped the whole of Chaga 
with a piece of wood upon the ground, and gave me 
