To Sdnga-Tanga and Back. 145 
ulcerate, and which may lame the traveller for 
weeks. They are often caused by walking and 
sitting in wet shoes and stockings ; it is so trouble¬ 
some to pull off and pull on again after wading and 
fording, repeated during every few hundred yards, 
that most men tramp through the brooks and suffer 
in consequence. Constant care of the feet is neces¬ 
sary in African travel, and the ease with which 
they are hurt—sluggish circulation, poor food and 
insufficient stimulants being the causes—is one of 
its deplaisirs. The people wash and anoint these 
wounds with palm oil : a hot bath, with pepper- 
water, if there be no rum, gives more relief, and 
caustic must sometimes be used. 
We reached Mbata at 6.15 p. m., and all agreed 
that two hours of such forest-walking do more 
damage than five days along the sands. 
Since my departure from the coast, French naval 
officers, travellers and traders, have not been idle. 
The Marquis de Compiegne, who returned to 
Franee in 1874, suffering from ulcerated legs, had 
travelled up the Fernao Vaz, and its tributary 
the highly irregular Ogobai, Ogowa'i, or Ogowe 
(Ogobe); yet, curious to remark, all his discoveries 
are omitted by Herr Kiepert. His furthest point 
was 213 kilometres east of “ San Quita” (Sankwita), 
a village sixty-one kilometres north (??) of Pointe 
Fetiche, near Cape Lopez; but wars and receding 
waters prevented his reaching the confluence where 
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