Through Ruanda to Lake Kiwu 65 
revealed a perfect genius for pitching upon the exact spots suit¬ 
able. It was only necessary for us to indicate the direction in 
which the tent was to be pitched, with the stereotyped ' mlango 
huko! ’ (‘ door there! ’) to be assured of finding ourselves snug 
for another day. 
“And now to the west, towards Lake Kiwu! The scenery 
differed entirely in character from that to which we had grown 
accustomed during our long sojourn at Lake Mohasi, and re¬ 
minded us more of South Mpororo. Whilst the country round 
Mohasi appeared to be a maze of fairly lofty ridges, divided by 
broad valleys—a tableland traversed by numerous broken rifts, 
characterised by no typical mountain masses—the landscape 
south of the Niawarongo, about a day’s march from Msinga’s 
residence, assumed a different aspect. Numerous isolated moun¬ 
tains rose above the undulating tracts of land, not imposing at 
all in their height, but more hill-like and often strikingly regular 
in their conical form. This mountain scenery, however, came 
to an end on the first day of our march. On reaching the little 
river Mhogo (which, united with the Rukarara, forms the Nia¬ 
warongo) the Shunda mountain group rose up in front of us like 
an advance post of the Kiwu Mountains, spreading over the 
broad papyrus valley and falling away in picturesque steep, bare 
declivities. ■ 
“From our line of route one gained quite another impression 
of the margin of the rift-valley to that which the traveller gains 
who goes from Mohasi or from Mpororo to the lake. On that 
route the road rises steadily and imperceptibly until it begins 
to slope down to the ‘ ditch,’ but on our route from the east the 
marginal ridges appear like fair-sized mountains. Fond as I am 
of mountains, I must confess that when I was confronted by 
the steep and rugged-looking Shunda the idea of having to sur¬ 
mount it seemed to promise so little pleasure that I felt like 
pitching tents at once. But Miniago led us round the base into 
the valley of the Lukondo, where we camped in the shade of 
the mighty Shunda, on its southern slopes, which were profusely 
overgrown with bananas. At night we were favoured with an 
J 
