20th February, 1871.—­To the ford with only one canoe now, as two men of Katomba were swept away in the other, and drowned.  They would not sell the remaining canoe, so I go N.W. on foot to Moene Lualaba, where fine large canoes are abundant.  The grass and mud are grievous, but my men lift me over the waters.

21st February, 1871.—­Arrived at Monandewa’s village, situated on a high ridge between two deep and difficult gullies.  These people are obliging and kind:  the chief’s wife made a fire for me in the evening unbidden.

22nd February, 1871.—­On N.W. to a high hill called Chibande a Yunde, with a spring of white water at the village on the top.  Famine from some unknown cause here, but the people are cultivating now on the plain below with a will.

23rd February, 1871.—­On to two large villages with many banana plants around, but the men said they were in fear of the traders, and shifted their villages to avoid them:  we then went on to the village Kahombogola, with a feeble old man as chief.  The country is beautiful and undulating:  light-green grass covers it all, save at the brooks, where the eye is relieved by the dark-green lines of trees.  Grass tears the hands and wets the extremities constantly.  The soil is formed of the debris of granitic rocks; rough and stony, but everywhere fertile.  One can rarely get a bare spot to sit down and rest.

24th February, 1871.—­To a village near Lolande River.  Then across the Loengadye, sleeping on the bank of the Luha, and so to Mamohela, where we were welcomed by all the Arabs, and I got a letter from Dr. Kirk and another from the Sultan, and from Mohamad bin Nassib who was going to Karagwe:  all anxious to be kind.  Katomba gave flour, nuts, fowls, and goat.  A new way is opened to Kasongo’s, much shorter than that I followed.  I rest a few days, and then go on.

25th February, 1871.—­So we went on, and found that it was now known that the Lualaba flowed west-south-west, and that our course was to be west across this other great bend of the mighty river.  I had to suspend my judgment, so as to be prepared to find it after all perhaps the Congo.  No one knew anything about it except that when at Kasongo’s nine days west, and by south it came sweeping round and flowed north and north and by east.

Katomba presented a young soko or gorillah that had been caught while its mother was killed; she sits eighteen inches high, has fine long black hair all over, which was pretty so long as it was kept in order by her dam.  She is the least mischievous of all the monkey tribe I have seen, and seems to know that in me she has a friend, and sits quietly on the mat beside me.  In walking, the first thing observed is that she does not tread on the palms of her hands, but on the backs of the second line of bones of the hands:  in doing this the nails do not touch the ground, nor do the knuckles; she uses the arms thus