The tribute was paid to preserve peace, and on the 27th, shaking the dust of Mvumi off their feet, the party proceeded westward. The country was one vast field of grain, and thickly populated.
Between that place and the next sultan’s district twenty-five villages were counted. Whenever they halted large groups of people assembled and greeted with peals of laughter the dress and manner of the mzungu, or white man, and more than once had to be kept at a distance by Stanley’s rifle or pistols, sometimes his thick whip coming into play.
After this a dense jungle was entered, the path serpentining in and out of it; again open tracts of grass bleached white were passed: now it led through thickets of gums and thorns, producing an odour as rank as a stable; now through clumps of wide-spreading mimosa and colonies of baobab-trees across a country teeming with noble game, which, though frequently seen, were yet as safe from their rifles as if they had been on the Indian Ocean. But the road they were on admitted of no delay; water had been left behind at noon; until noon the next day not a drop was to be obtained, and unless they marched fast and long, raging thirst would demoralise everybody.
After this wearisome journey Stanley was again attacked by fever, which it required a whole day’s halt and fifty grains of quinine to cure.
As may be supposed they were thankful when Ugogo was passed, and they entered Unyanyembe.
As the caravan resumed its march after halting at noon, the Wanyamuezi cheered, shouted, and sang, the soldiers and pagazis shouting in return, and the kirangoza blew his horn much more merrily than he had been wont to do in Ugogo.
A large district, however, presented the sad spectacle of numerous villages burnt down, cattle carried off, and the grain-fields overrun with jungle and rank weeds—too common a sight in that part of the country.
The expedition at length entered Kivihara, the capital of the province ruled over by the aged Sultan Mkaswa, who received Stanley in a friendly way. The Sheikh Said Ben Salim invited him to take up his quarters in his tembe, or house, a comfortable-looking place for the centre of Africa. Here his goods were stored, and his carriers paid off.
His three other caravans had arrived safely. One had had a slight skirmish, a second having shot a thief, and the third having lost a bale when attacked by robbers.
This is the place, to the southward of Victoria Nyanza, where Captains Burton, Speke, and Grant remained for a considerable time at different periods during their expeditions.