The chief burst into a loud laugh, and was joined by ourselves. He evidently felt ashamed of his conduct for he voluntarily offered the explanation, that as he and his men were cutting wood to make a new fence for his village, a lad came up to him, and said that a caravan of Wangwana were about passing through the country without stopping to explain who they were. We were soon very good friends. He begged of me to make rain for him, as his crops were suffering, and no rain had fallen for months. I told him that though white people were very great and clever people, much superior to the Arabs, yet we could not make rain. Though very much disappointed, he did not doubt my statement, and after receiving his honga, which was very light, he permitted us to go on our way, and even accompanied us some distance to show us the road.
At 3 P.M. we entered a thorny jungle; and by 5 P.M. we had arrived at Muhalata, a district lorded over by the chief Nyamzaga. A Mgogo, of whom I made a friend, proved very staunch. He belonged to Mulowa, a country to the S.S.E., and south of Kulabi; and was active in promoting my interests by settling the tribute, with the assistance of Bombay, for me. When, on the next day, we passed through Kulabi on our way to Mvumi, and the Wagogo were about to stop us for the honga, he took upon himself the task of relieving us from further toll, by stating we were from Ugogo or Kanyenyi. The chief simply nodded his head, and we passed on. It seems that the Wagogo do not exact blackmail of those caravans who intend only to trade in their own country, or have no intention of passing beyond their own frontier.
Leaving Kulabi, we traversed a naked, red, loamy plain, over which the wind from the heights of Usagara, now rising a bluish-black jumble of mountains in our front, howled most fearfully. With clear, keen, incisive force, the terrible blasts seemed to penetrate through an through our bodies, as though we were but filmy gauze. Manfully battling against this mighty "peppo"—storm—we passed through Mukamwa's, and crossing a broad sandy bed of a stream, we entered the territory of Mvumi, the last tribute-levying chief of Ugogo.
The 4th of April, after sending Bombay and my friendly Mgogo with eight doti, or thirty-two yards of cloth, as a farewell tribute to the Sultan, we struck off through the jungle, and in five hours we were on the borders of the wilderness of "Marenga Mkali"—the "hard," bitter or brackish, water.
From our camp I despatched three men to Zanzibar with letters to the American Consul, and telegraphic despatches for the 'Herald,' with a request to the Consul that he would send the men back with a small case or two containing such luxuries as hungry, worn-out, and mildewed men would appreciate. The three messengers were charged not to halt for anything—rain or no rain, river or inundation—as if they did not hurry up we should catch them before they reached the coast. With a fervent "Inshallah, bana," they departed.
On the 5th, with a loud, vigorous, cheery "Hurrah!" we plunged into the depths of the wilderness, which, with its eternal silence and solitude, was far preferable to the jarring, inharmonious discord of the villages of the Wagogo. For nine hours we held on our way, starting with noisy shouts the fierce rhinoceros, the timid quagga, and the herds of antelopes which crowd the jungles of this broad salina. On the 7th, amid a pelting rain, we entered Mpwapwa, where my Scotch assistant, Farquhar, died. We had performed the extraordinary march of 338 English statute miles from the 14th of March to the 7th of April, or within twenty-four days, inclusive of halts, which was a little over fourteen miles a day.
Leukole, the chief of Mpwapwa, with whom I left Farquhar, gave the following account of the death of the latter:—
"The white man seemed to be improving after you left him, until the, fifth day, when, while attempting to rise and walk out of his tent, he fell back; from that minute he got worse and worse, and in the afternoon he died, like one going to sleep. His legs and abdomen had swollen considerably, and something, I think, broke within him when he fell, for he cried out like a man who was very much hurt, and his servant said, 'The master says he is dying.'
"We had him carried out under a large tree, and after covering him with leaves, there left him. His servant took possession of his things, his rifle, clothes, and blanket, and moved off to the tembe of a Mnyamwezi, near Kisokweh, where he lived for three months, when he also died. Before he died he sold his master's rifle to an Arab going to Unyanyembe for ten doti (forty yards of cloth). That is all I know about it."
He subsequently showed me the hollow into which the dead body of Farquhar was thrown, but I could not find a vestige of his bones, though we looked sharply about that we might make a decent grave for them. Before we left Unyanyembe fifty men were employed two days carrying rocks, with which I built up a solid enduring pile around Shaw's grave eight feet long and five feet broad, which Dr. Livingstone said would last hundreds of years, as the grave of the first white man who died in Unyamwezi. But though we could not discover any remains of the unfortunate Farquhar, we collected a large quantity of stones, and managed to raise a mound near the banks of the stream to commemorate the spot where his body was laid.