Food is abundant and cheap.
Our course is nearly south, and in "wadys," from which, following the trade-road, we often ascend the heights, and then from the villages, which are on the higher land, we descend to another on the same wady.
No running water is seen; the people depend on wells for a supply.
_11th April, 1866._--At Tandahara we were still ascending as we went south; the soil is very fertile, with a good admixture of sand in it, but no rocks are visible.

Very heavy crops of maize and sorghum are raised, and the cassava bushes are seven feet in height.

The bamboos are cleared off them, spread over the space to be cultivated and burned to serve as manure.

Iron is very scarce, for many of the men appear with wooden spears; they find none here, but in some spots where an ooze issued from the soil iron rust appeared.

At each of the villages where we spent a night we presented a fathom of calico, and the headman always gave a fowl or two, and a basket of rice or maize.
The Makonde dialect is quite different from Swaheli, but from their intercourse with the coast Arabs many of the people here have acquired a knowledge of Swaheli.
[Illustration: A Thorn-climber.] _12th April, 1866._--On starting we found the jungle so dense that the people thought "there was no cutting it:" it continued upwards of three miles.