I 
238 THE KillMA-NJAlt0 EXPEDITION. 
44 YVatu wa Mandara! Watu wa Mandara ” (Man¬ 
dara’s people). I rose to my feet and greeted the 
captain of the force with the usual Caga salutation, 
44 Mbui’a ” (friend). He informed me that Mandara 
had feared a difficulty with the people of Kiboso, and 
had sent 200 soldiers to escort us back. After this 
last scare nothing further happened to cause us further 
anxiety. Mandara’s soldiers went along their course 
behind us, and had a skirmish with the Wa-kiboso to 
cover our retreat, and we eventually reached our 
settlement of Kitimbiriu thoroughly exhausted with 
our day’s adventures, but feeling quite happy at once 
more coming 44 home.” 
Mandara sent the next day his congratulations on 
my safe return, and a fine goat wherewith to make 
merry. As I had almost given up the hope of ever 
seeing my caravan from the coast—they were six 
weeks overdue, and I imagined them annihilated by 
the Masai—I felt very uncertain as to my chances of 
withdrawing from Mandara’s country, and conse¬ 
quently congratulated myself on the improved rela¬ 
tions subsisting between myself and that chief. I 
now devoted myself entirely to natural history 
studies and researches into the habits and customs of 
the Wa-caga, and the peculiarities of their interesting 
dialect. The days slipped by most pleasantly, I ate 
and drank of the best, for my kitchen-garden yielded 
me almost every well-known kind of vegetable in 
abundance, and the native markets supplied such 
cheap and varied provisions that I scarcely had cause 
to regret the exhaustion of my European stores. In 
short, I was now resigned apparently to a long isola¬ 
tion on Kilima-njaro, without any present hope of 
reopening communication with the coast, when, one 
