we reached Unyamyembe, where we should certainly be joined by reinforcements of porters.
“How do you know?” I inquired.
“Allah is all-knowing,” said Said. “The caravan will come.”
As the fatalism was infectious, I ceased to think upon the subject.
The next day we sighted the plateau of Ugogo and its eastern desert. The spectacle was truly impressive. The first aspect was stern and wild—the rough nurse of rugged men. We went on the descent from day to day until September 18th, when a final march of four hours placed us on the plains of Ugogo. Before noon I sighted from a sharp turn in the bed of a river our tent pitched under a huge sycamore, on a level step. It was a pretty spot in the barren scene, grassy, and grown with green mimosas, and here we halted for a while. The second stage of our journey was accomplished.
After three days’ sojourn at Ugogo to recruit the party and lay in rations for four long desert marches, we set forth on our long march through the province of Ugogo. Our first day’s journey was over a grassy country, and we accomplished it in comparative comfort. The next day we toiled through the sunshine of the hot waste, crossing plains over paths where the slides of elephants’ feet upon the last year’s muddy clay showed that the land was not always dry. During this journey we suffered many discomforts and difficulties. The orb of day glowed like a fireball in our
faces; then our path would take us through dense, thorny jungle, and over plains of black, cracked earth. Our caravan once rested in a thorny copse based upon rich red and yellow clay; once it was hurriedly dislodged by a swarm of wild bees, and the next morning I learnt that we had sustained a loss—one of our porters had deserted, and to his care had been committed one of the most valuable of our packages, a portmanteau containing “The Nautical Almanac,” surveying books, and most of our papers, pen, and ink.
At last we arrived at Ziwa, a place where caravans generally encamped, because they found water there. At Ziwa we had many troubles. One Marema, the Sultan of a new settlement, visited us on the day of our arrival, and reproved us for sitting in the jungle, pointing the way to his village. On my replying we were going to traverse Ugogo by another road, he demanded his customs, which we refused, as they were a form of blackmail. The Sultan threatened violence, whereupon the asses were brought in from grazing and ostentatiously loaded before his eyes. He then changed his tone from threats to beggary. I gave him two cloths and a few strings of beads, preferring this to the chance of a flight of arrows during the night.
When we resumed our journey, the heat was awful. The sun burnt like the breath of a bonfire, warm siroccos raised clouds of dust, and in front of us the horizon was so distant that, as the Arabs expressed themselves, a man might be seen three marches off.
October 5th saw us in the centre of Kanyenye, a clearing in the jungle of about ten miles in diameter. The surface was of a red clayey soil dotted with small villages, huge calabashes, and stunted mimosas. Here I was delayed four days to settle blackmail with Magomba, the most powerful of the Wagogo chiefs. He was of a most avaricious nature. First of all I acknowledged his compliments with two cottons. On arrival at his headquarters, I was waited on by an oily Cabinet of Elders, who would not depart without their “respects”—four cottons. The next demand was made by his favourite, a hideous old Princess with more wrinkles than hair, with no hair black and no tooth white; she was not put right without a fee of six cottons. At last, accompanied by a mob of courtiers, appeared the chief in magnifico. He was the only chief who ever entered my tent in Ugogo—pride and a propensity for strong drink prevented such visits. He was much too great a man to call upon Arab merchants, but in our case curiosity mastered State considerations. Magomba was an old man, black and wrinkled, drivelling and decrepid. He wore a coating of castor-oil and a loin-cloth which grease and use had changed from blue to black. He chewed his quid, and expectorated without mercy; he asked many questions, and was all eyes to the main chance. He demanded, and received, five cloths, one coil of brass wire, and four blue cottons. In return he made me a present of the leanest of calves, and when it was driven into