It was therefore fortunate for me that I overtook him at Kiora; though he was about to prove a sore incumbrance to me, for he was not able to walk, and the donkey-carriage, after the rough experience of the Makata valley, was failing. I could not possibly leave him at Kiora, death would soon overtake him there; but how long I could convey a man in such a state, through a country devoid of carriage, was a question to be resolved by circumstances.
On the 11th of May, the third and fifth caravans, now united, followed up the right bank of the Mukondokwa, through fields of holcus, the great Mukondokwa ranges rising in higher altitude as we proceeded west, and enfolding us in the narrow river valley round about. We left Muniyi Usagara on our right, and soon after found hill-spurs athwart our road, which we were obliged to ascend and descend.
A march of eight miles from the ford of Misonghi brought us to another ford of the Mukondokwa, where we bid a long adieu to Burton's road, which led up to the Goma pass and up the steep slopes of Rubeho. Our road left the right bank and followed the left over a country quite the reverse of the Mukondokwa Valley, enclosed between mountain ranges. Fertile soils and spontaneous vegetation, reeking with miasma and overpowering from their odour, we had exchanged for a drouthy wilderness of aloetic and cactaceous plants, where the kolquall and several thorn bushes grew paramount.
Instead of the tree-clad heights, slopes and valleys, instead of cultivated fields, we saw now the confines of uninhabited wilderness. The hill-tops were bared of their bosky crowns, and revealed their rocky natures bleached white by rain and sun. Nguru Peak, the loftiest of the Usagara cones, stood right shoulderwards of us as we ascended the long slope of dun-grey soil which rose beyond the brown Mukondokwa on the left.
At the distance of two miles from the last ford, we found a neat khambi, situated close to the river, where it first broke into a furious rapid.
The next morning the caravan was preparing for the march, when I was informed that the "Bana Mdogo"—little master—Shaw, had not yet arrived with the cart, and the men in charge of it. Late the previous night I had despatched one donkey for Shaw, who had said he was too ill to walk, and another for the load that was on the cart; and had retired satisfied that they would soon arrive. My conclusion, when I learned in the morning that the people had not yet come in, was that Shaw was not aware that for five days we should have to march through a wilderness totally uninhabited. I therefore despatched Chowpereh, a Mgwana soldier, with the following note to him:—"You will, upon receipt of this order pitch the cart into the nearest ravine, gully, or river, as well as all the extra pack saddles; and come at once, for God's sake, for we must not starve here!"
One, two, three, and four hours were passed by me in the utmost impatience, waiting, but in vain, for Shaw. Having a long march before us, I could wait no longer, but went to meet his party myself. About a quarter of mile from the ford I met the van of the laggards—stout burly Chowpereh—and, O cartmakers, listen! he carried the cart on his head—wheels, shafts, body, axle, and all complete; he having found that carrying it was much easier than drawing it. The sight was such a damper to my regard for it as an experiment, that the cart was wheeled into the depths of the tall reeds, and there left. The central figure was Shaw himself, riding at a gait which seemed to leave it doubtful on my mind whether he or his animal felt most sleepy. Upon expostulating with him for keeping the caravan so long waiting when there was a march on hand, in a most peculiar voice—which he always assumed when disposed to be ugly-tempered—he said he had done the best he could; but as I had seen the solemn pace at which he rode, I felt dubious about his best endeavours; and of course there was a little scene, but the young European mtongi of an East African expedition must needs sup with the fellows he has chosen.
We arrived at Madete at 4 P.M., minus two donkeys, which had stretched their weary limbs in death. We had crossed the Mukondokwa about 3 P.M., and after taking its bearings and course, I made sure that its rise took place near a group of mountains about forty miles north by west of Nguru Peak. Our road led W.N.W., and at this place finally diverged from the river.
On the 14th, after a march of seven miles over hills whose sandstone and granite formation cropped visibly here and there above the surface, whose stony and dry aspect seemed reflected in every bush and plant, and having gained an altitude of about eight hundred feet above the flow of the Mukondokwa, we sighted the Lake of Ugombo—a grey sheet of water lying directly at the foot of the hill, from whose summit we gazed at the scene. The view was neither beautiful nor pretty, but what I should call refreshing; it afforded a pleasant relief to the eyes fatigued from dwelling on the bleak country around. Besides, the immediate neighbourhood of the lake was too tame to call forth any enthusiasm; there were no grandly swelling mountains, no smiling landscapes—nothing but a dun-brown peak, about one thousand feet high above the surface of the lake at its western extremity, from which the lake derived its name, Ugombo; nothing but a low dun-brown irregular range, running parallel with its northern shore at the distance of a mile; nothing but a low plain stretching from its western shore far away towards the Mpwapwa Mountains and Marenga Mkali, then apparent to us from our coign of vantage, from which extensive scene of dun-brownness we were glad to rest our eyes on the quiet grey water beneath.
Descending from the summit of the range, which bounded the lake east for about four hundred feet, we travelled along the northern shore. The time occupied in the journey from the eastern to the western extremity was exactly one hour and thirty minutes.