444 Wanderings m Eastern Africa. 
sion half idiotic. He scarcely looked at me, and sat 
during the whole of the interview with his eyes fixed 
upon the ground. When he spoke, it was in tones so 
low that we could scarcely hear him. After I had 
explained who I was and had asked for guides to 
Chala, he said quietly, I am glad to see the 
Mzungu, but am sorry to say that I can give him no 
sort of entertainment. My country has been despoiled, 
and I am poor. Mandara wishes me to give the 
Mzungu the road and guides to Chala ; this shall be 
done." 
Finding that it would be impossible to reach 
Chala to-day, we would have remained with Jasimba 
for the night, but he seemed so anxious to be rid of 
us, that we pushed farther on. 
We had not gone far, however, before we met a 
party of some eighteen men who forbade us the 
path. They seemed to have sprung from the ground, 
and put on a very bold front. Who are you,'' 
they asked, that you should go where you please in 
our country } We have seen far too much of strangers 
lately ; and you had better return whence you came." 
The guide and some of our men looked alarmed, but 
after some expostulation and explanation the party 
gave way. They were jealous, we found, of the little 
water their district supplies, and were unwilling that 
we should know its whereabouts, but they offered to 
supply us with it if we would pay for it. 
We encamped that night in the bottom of a deep 
valley, shut in by a dense growth of plantations on 
every side— a rather gloomy spot. The next morning, 
at sunrise, we were moving again. Ascending a ridge 
—the south-eastern spur of Kihma Njaro — remarkable 
