THROUGH THE FORESTS OF KIMAWEJSTZl | $c. 289 
quietly, paying no heed to the verbal provocations of 
the Wa-rombo. When at length we emerged on the 
open country, I turned and saluted them with some 
very vigorous terms in Ki-caga, and they for a while 
dispersed; afterwards for some distance hanging on 
our heels like hyenas ready to snap up any loiterer or 
lag-behind. 
The country of Eombo, from what I could see of it, 
is not very attractive in its natural features. Indeed, 
I was informed afterwards that its unhappy people, 
harried on all sides by Wa-caga and Masai, were only 
allowed to live there because the land was not worth 
taking possession of. The rainfall, so abundant and 
constant on other parts of the mountain, is here 
strangely and partially deficient. The perennial water¬ 
courses flowing from the base of Kimawenzi either turn 
to the south-east or north-east, thus neglecting the 
due-eastern slope of the mountain, on which Eombo 
is situated. True, the land is deeply scored and inter¬ 
sected by a few profound ravines, but these are but the 
beds of occasional torrents which flow only after heavy 
rains in the uplands. The Eiver Lumi, even, dries up 
where it nears Eombo, and its flow, apparently, re¬ 
issues farther on from an underground channel. The 
aspect of the country is very dismal. Poor little 
withered plantations of parched cereals or groves of 
stumpy, dwarfed bananas mark the few attempts at 
cultivation; and outside these, there is little but stony 
gorges scattered with thorny vegetation in their dry 
depths, and stony hills and rolling plateaux sparsely 
clothed with long, dry, yellow grass. Yet, unpre¬ 
possessing though this land may be, it is likely to be an 
important district in the opening up of Kilima-njaro. 
Not only is it nearest to the approach from the coast, 
IT 
