He thought it impossible for us to pull through the wilderness, with its jungle grasses and roots, depending for food only on Grant's gun and my own; still we made half-way to the Mdaburu nullah, taking some of Mamba's out to camp with us, as he promised to take letters and specimens down to the coast for us, provided I paid him some cloths as ready money down, and promised some more to be paid at Zanzibar.

These letters eventually reached home, but not the specimens.
The rains were so heavy that the whole country was now flooded, but we pushed on to the nullah by relays, and pitched on its left bank.

In the confusion of the march, however, we lost many more porters, who at the same time relieved us of their loads, by slipping off stealthily into the bush.
The fifteenth was a forced halt, as the stream was so deep and so violent we could not cross it.

To make the best of this very unfortunate interruption, I now sent on two men to Kaze, with letters to Musa and Sheikh Snay, both old friends on the former expedition, begging them to send me sixty men, each carrying thirty rations of grain, and some country tobacco.

The tobacco was to gratify my men, who said of all things they most wanted to cheer them was something to smoke.