“Thank you, sheikh.  I should like to go and look after my people; they must all be wanting food.”

“I shall go with you to show you your house.  The tembe is in Kwihara, only an hour’s walk from Tabora.”

On leaving Kwikuru we crossed a low ridge, and soon saw Kwihara lying between two low ranges of hills, the northernmost of which was terminated westward by the round fortress-like hill of Zimbili.  There was a cold glare of intense sunshine over the valley, probably the effect of an universal bleakness or an autumnal ripeness of the grass, unrelieved by any depth of colour to vary the universal sameness.  The hills were bleached, or seemed to be, under that dazzling sunshine, and clearest atmosphere.  The corn had long been cut, and there lay the stubble, and fields,—­a browny-white expanse; the houses were of mud, and their fiat roofs were of mud, and the mud was of a browny-whiteness; the huts were thatched, and the stockades around them of barked timber, and these were of a browny whiteness.  The cold, fierce, sickly wind from the mountains of Usagara sent a deadly chill to our very marrows, yet the intense sunshiny glare never changed, a black cow or two, or a tall tree here and there, caught the eye for a moment, but they never made one forget that the first impression of Kwihara was as of a picture without colour, or of food without taste; and if one looked up, there was a sky of a pale blue, spotless, and of an awful serenity.

As I approached the tembe of Sayd bin Salim, Sheikh bin Nasib and other great Arabs joined us.  Before the great door of the tembe the men had stacked the bales, and piled the boxes, and were using their tongues at a furious rate, relating to the chiefs and soldiers of the first, second, and fourth caravans the many events which had befallen them, and which seemed to them the only things worth relating.  Outside of their own limited circles they evidently cared for nothing.  Then the several chiefs of the other caravans had in turn to relate their experiences of the road; and the noise of tongues was loud and furious.  But as we approached, all this loud-sounding gabble ceased, and my caravan chiefs and guides rushed to me to hail me as “master,” and to salute me as their friend.  One fellow, faithful Baruti, threw himself at my feet, the others fired their guns and acted like madmen suddenly become frenzied, and a general cry of “welcome” was heard on all sides.

“Walk in, master, this is your house, now; here are your men’s quarters; here you will receive the great Arabs, here is the cook-house; here is the store-house; here is the prison for the refractory; here are your white man’s apartments; and these are your own:  see, here is the bedroom, here is the gun-room, bath-room, &c.;” so Sheikh Sayd talked, as he showed me the several places.

On my honour, it was a most comfortable place, this, in Central Africa.  One could almost wax poetic, but we will keep such ambitious ideas for a future day.  Just now, however, we must have the goods stored, and the little army of carriers paid off and disbanded.