G4 
TIIE KILIMA NJARO EXPEDITION. 
CHAPTER IV. 
TAITA TO KILIMA-NJARO. 
Having once more reassembled the men, rearranged 
the burdens, and left behind what we could not carry 
in the kind charge of a missionary who was tempo¬ 
rarily residing on the summit of Ndara Hill, we 
started on a day’s journey to Mwatate, passing through 
dense thorny bush, rocky defiles, and dried-up stream 
courses, and finally reaching, to my joy, the first 
channel of running water we had met with since leav¬ 
ing the vicinity of the coast. The ground along its 
banks had been cleared and cultivated; we crossed the 
stream on a rickety wooden bridge, and passed up 
through fields of maize and brakes of sugar-cane to 
our camping-place, under an umbrageous tree. Here 
pleasant-mannered natives greeted us; we paid the 
small present demanded as an indemnity for passing 
through their country and drinking £€ their ” water, 
and then enjoyed a welcome rest amid surroundings of 
quiet beauty. The next day we were travelling through 
a Swiss-like country of mountain passes and richly 
fertile valleys, and at length came to Bura, a camping- 
place at the foot of the strangely peaked mountains of 
that name. Here we were nearly having a skirmish 
with the natives, who demanded an exorbitant pay- 
