408 
AFRICA AND ITS EXPLORATION. 
“All! good. Did you see anything else very won- 
derful on your journey ? ” 
“ Oh, yes ! There are monstrous large boa-constrictors 
in the forest of Uregga, suspended by their tails to the 
branches, waiting for the passer-by or for a stray ante- 
lope. The ants in that forest are not to be despised. 
You cannot travel without your body being covered 
with them, when they sting you like wasps. The 
leopards are so numerous that you cannot go very far 
without seeing one. Almost everv native wears a 
leopard-skin cap. The Sokos (gorillas) are in the 
woods, and woe befall the man or woman met alone by 
them ; for they run up to you and seize your hands, 
and bite the fingers off one by one, and as fast as they 
bite one off, they spit it out. The Wasongora Meno 
and Waregga are cannibals, and unless the force is very 
strong, they never let strangers pass. It is nothing but 
constant fighting. Only two years ago a party armed 
with three hundred guns started north of Usongora 
Meno ; they only brought sixty guns back, and no 
ivory. If one tries to go by the river, there are falls 
after falls, which carry the people over and drown them. 
A party of thirty men, in three canoes, went down the 
river half a day’s journey from Nyangwe, when the old 
white man was living there. They were all drowned, 
and that was the reason he did not go on. Had he 
done so, he would have been eaten, for what could he 
have done ? Ah, no ! Master, the country is bad, and 
the Arabs have given it up beyond Uregga. They will 
not try the journey into that country again, after trying 
it three times and losing nearly five hundred men 
altogether.” 
“ Your story is very interesting, Abedi,” said I. 
“ Some of it, I think, is true, for the old white man 
said the same thing to me when I was at Ujiji some 
four years ago. However, I want to hear Tippu-Tib 
speak.” 
During all the time that Abedi had related his won- 
derful experiences, the other Arabs had been listening, 
profoundly interested ; but when I turned inquiringly 
