The Wanyamuezi porters even thought they had found a paradise, and forthwith threw down their loads as the villagers came to offer them grain for sale; so that, had I not had the Wanguana a little under control, we should not have completed our distance that day, and so reached Manyonge, which reminded me, by its ugliness, of the sterile Somali land.

Proceeding through the semi-desert rolling table-land--in one place occupied by men who build their villages in large open squares of flat-topped mud huts, which, when I have occasion to refer to them in future, I shall call by their native name tembe--we could see on the right hand the massive mountains overhanging the Mukondokua river, to the front the western chain of these hills, and to the left the high crab-claw shaped ridge, which, extending from the western chain, circles round conspicuously above the swelling knolls which lie between the two main rocky ridges.

Contorted green thorn-trees, "elephant-foot" stumps, and aloes, seem to thrive best here, by their very nature indicating what the country is, a poor stony land.

Our camp was pitched by the river Rumuma, where, sheltered from the winds, and enriched by alluvial soil, there ought to have been no scarcity; but still the villagers had nothing to sell.
On we went again to Marenga Mkhaili, the "Salt Water," to breakfast, and camped in the crooked green thorns by night, carrying water on for our supper.

This kind of travelling--forced marches--hard as it may appear, was what we liked best, for we felt that we were shortening the journey, and in doing so, shortening the risks of failure by disease, by war, by famine, and by mutiny.