“The scenery was getting more sublime every day as we advanced northward, even approaching the terrible. We seemed to have left the monotony of a desert for the wild, picturesque scenery of Abyssinia and the terrible mountains of the Sierra Nevadas. I named one tabular mountain, which recalled memories of the Abyssinian campaign, Magdala, and as I gave it a place on my chart it became of great use to me, as it rose so prominently into view that I was enabled to lay down our route pretty accurately. The four days’ provisions we had taken with us were soon consumed, and still we were far from the Malagarazi River. Though we eked out my own stores with great care, as shipwrecked men at sea, these also gave out on the sixth day, and still the Malagarazi was not in sight. The country was getting more difficult for travel, owing to the numerous ascents and descents we had to make in the course of a day’s march. Bleached and bare, it was cut up by a thousand deep ravines and intersected by a thousand dry water courses whose beds were filled with immense sandstone rocks and boulders washed away from the great heights which rose above us on every side. We were not protected now by the shades of the forest, and the heat became excessive and water became scarce. But we still held on our way, hoping that each day’s march would bring us in sight of the long-looked-for and much-desired Malagarazi. Fortunately we had filled our bags and baskets with the forest peaches with which the forests of Rusawa had supplied us, and these sustained us in this extremity.
“Proceeding on our road on the eighth day every thing we saw tended to confirm us in the belief that food was at hand. After travelling two hours, still descending rapidly towards a deep basin which we saw, the foremost of the expedition halted, attracted by the sight of a village situated on a table-topped mountain on our right. The guide told us it must be that of the son of Nzogera, of Uvinza. We followed a road leading to the foot of the mountain, and camped on the edge of an extensive morass. Though we fired guns to announce our arrival, it was unnecessary, for the people were already hurrying to our camps to inquire about our intentions. The explanation was satisfactory, but they said that they had taken us to be enemies, few friends having ever come along our road. In a few minutes there was an abundance of meat and grain in the camp, and the men’s jaws were busy in the process of mastication.
“During the whole of the afternoon we were engaged upon the terms Nzogera’s son exacted for the privilege of passing through his country. We found him to be the first of a tribute-taking tribe which subsequently made much havoc in the bales of the expedition. Seven and a half doti of cloth were what we were compelled to pay, whether we returned or proceeded on our way. After a day’s halt we proceeded under the guidance of two men granted to me as qualified to show the way to the Malagarazi River. We had to go east-northeast for a considerable time in order to avoid the morass that lay directly across the country that intervened between the triangular mountain on whose top Nzogera’s son dwelt. This marsh drains three extensive ranges of mountains which, starting from the westward, separated only by two deep chasms from each other, run at wide angles—one southeast, one northeast, and the other northwest. From a distance this marsh looks fair enough; stately trees at intervals rise seemingly from its bosom, and between them one catches glimpses of a lovely champaign, bounded by perpendicular mountains, in the far distance. After a wide detour we struck straight for this marsh, which presented to us another novelty in the watershed of the Tanganyika.
“Fancy a river broad as the Hudson at Albany, though not near so deep or swift, covered over by water plants and grasses, which had become so interwoven and netted together as to form a bridge covering its entire length and breadth, under which the river flowed calm and deep below. It was over this natural bridge we were expected to cross. Adding to the tremor which one naturally felt at having to cross this frail bridge was the tradition that only a few yards higher up an Arab and his donkey, thirty-five slaves and sixteen tusks of ivory had suddenly sunk forever out of sight. As one-half of our little column had already arrived at the centre, we on the shore could see the network of grass waving on either side, in one place like to the swell of a sea after a storm, and in another like a small lake violently ruffled by a squall. Hundreds of yards away from them it ruffled, and undulated one wave after another. As we all got on it we perceived it to sink about a foot, forcing the water on which it rested into the grassy channel formed by our footsteps. One of my donkeys broke through, and it required the united strength of ten men to extricate him. The aggregate weight of the donkey and men caused that portion of the bridge on which they stood to sink about two feet and a circular pool of water was formed, and I expected every minute to see them suddenly sink out of sight. Fortunately we managed to cross the treacherous bridge without accident.
“Arriving on the other side, we struck north, passing through a delightful country, in every way suitable for agricultural settlements or happy mission stations. The primitive rock began to show itself anew in eccentric clusters, as a flat-topped rock, on which the villages of the Wavinza were seen and where the natives prided themselves on their security and conducted themselves accordingly, ever insolent and forward. We were halted every two or three miles by the demand for tribute, which we did not, because we could not, pay.
“On the second day after leaving Nzogera’s son we commenced a series of descents, the deep valleys on each side of us astonishing us by their profundity, and the dark gloom prevailing below, amid their wonderful dense forests of tall trees, and glimpses of plains beyond, invited sincere admiration. In about a couple of hours we discovered the river we were looking for below, at the distance of a mile, running like a silver vein through a broad valley. Halting at Kiala’s, eldest son of Nzogera, the principal Sultan of Uvinza, we waited an hour to see on what terms he would ferry us over the Malagarazi. As we could not come to a definite conclusion respecting them we were obliged to camp in his village.
“Until three o’clock P. M. the following day continued the negotiations for ferrying us across the Malagarazi, consisting of arguments, threats, quarrels, loud shouting and stormy debate on both sides. Finally, six doti and ten fundo of sami-sami beads were agreed upon. After which we marched to the ferry, distant half a mile from the scene of so much contention. The river at this place was not more than thirty yards broad, sluggish and deep; yet I would prefer attempting to cross the Mississippi by swimming rather than the Malagarazi. Such another river for the crocodiles, cruel as death, I cannot conceive. Their long, tapering heads dotted the river everywhere, and though I amused myself, pelting them with two-ounce balls, I made no effect on their numbers. Two canoes had discharged their live cargo on the other side of the river when the story of Captain Burton’s passage across the Malagarazi higher up was brought vividly to my mind by the extortions which Mutware now commenced.
A FLOATING ALLIGATOR.
“Two marches from Malagarazi brought us to Uhha. Kawanga was the first place in Uhha where we halted. It is the village where resides the first mutware, or chief, to whom caravans have to pay tribute. To this man we paid twelve and a half doti, upon the understanding that we would have to pay no more between here and Ujiji. We left Kawanga cheerfully enough. The country undulated gently before us like the prairie of Nebraska, as devoid of trees almost as our plains. The top of every wave of land enabled us to see the scores of villages which dotted its surface, though it required keen eyes to detect at a distance the beehived and straw-thatched huts from the bleached grass of the plain.