3rd February, 1870.—­Caught in a drenching rain, which made me fain to sit, exhausted as I was, under an umbrella for an hour trying to keep the trunk dry.  As I sat in the rain a little tree-frog, about half an inch long, leaped on to a grassy leaf, and began a tune as loud as that of many birds, and very sweet; it was surprising to hear so much music out of so small a musician.  I drank some rain-water as I felt faint—­in the paths it is now calf deep.  I crossed a hundred yards of slush waist deep in mid channel, and full of holes made by elephants’ feet, the path hedged in by reedy grass, often intertwined and very tripping.  I stripped off my clothes on reaching my hut in a village, and a fire during night nearly dried them.  At the same time I rubbed my legs with palm oil, and in the morning had a delicious breakfast of sour goat’s milk and porridge.

5th February, 1870.—­The drenching told on me sorely, and it was repeated after we had crossed the good-sized rivulets Mulunkula and many villages, and I lay on an enormous boulder under a Muabe palm, and slept during the worst of the pelting.  I was seven days southing to Mamohela, Katomba’s camp, and quite knocked up and exhausted.  I went into winter quarters on 7th February, 1870.

7th February, 1870.—­This was the camp of the headman of the ivory horde now away for ivory.  Katomba, as Moene-mokaia is called, was now all kindness.  We were away from his Ujijian associates, and he seemed to follow his natural bent without fear of the other slave-traders, who all hate to see me as a spy on their proceedings.  Rest, shelter, and boiling all the water I used, and above all the new species of potato called Nyumbo, much famed among the natives as restorative, soon put me all to rights.  Katomba supplied me liberally with nyumbo; and, but for a slightly medicinal taste, which is got rid of by boiling in two waters, this vegetable would be equal to English potatoes.

11th February, 1870.—­First of all it was proposed to go off to the Lualaba in the north-west, in order to procure Holcus sorghum or dura flour, that being, in Arab opinion, nearly equal to wheat, or as they say “heating,” while the maize flour we were obliged to use was cold or cooling.

13th February, 1870.—­I was too ill to go through mud waist deep, so I allowed Mohamad (who was suffering much) to go away alone in search of ivory.  As stated above, shelter and nyumbo proved beneficial.

22nd February, 1870.—­Falls between Vira and Baker’s Water seen by Wanyamwezi.  This confirms my conjecture on finding Lualaba at a lower level than Tanganyika.  Bin Habib went to fight the Batusi, but they were too strong, and he turned.

1st March, 1870.—­Visited my Arab friends in their camp for the first time to-day.  This is Kasessa’s country, and the camp is situated between two strong rivulets, while Mamohela is the native name, Mount Bombola stands two miles from it north, and Mount Bolunkela is north-east the same distance.  Wood, water, and grass, the requisites of a camp abound, and the Manyuema bring large supplies of food every day; forty large baskets of maize for a goat; fowls and bananas and nyumbo very cheap.