more chiefs, living but two hours from each other, who would exact tribute, or black-mail, like those we had seen.  Knowing this much, I felt a certain calm.  It was far better to know the worst at once.  Five more chiefs with their demands would assuredly ruin us.  In view of which, what is to be done?  How am I to reach Livingstone, without being beggared?

Dismissing the men, I called Bombay, and told him to assist Asmani in settling the honga—­” as cheaply as possible.”  I then lit my pipe, put on the cap of consideration, and began to think.  Within half an hour, I had made a plan, which was to be attempted to be put in execution that very night.

I summoned the two slaves of Thani bin Abdullah, after the honga had been settled to everybody’s satisfaction—­though the profoundest casuistries and diplomatic arguments failed to reduce it lower than twenty-six doti—­and began asking them about the possibility of evading the tribute-taking Wahha ahead.

This rather astonished them at first, and they declared it to be impossible; but, finally, after being pressed, they replied, that one of their number should guide us at midnight, or a little after, into the jungle which grew on the frontiers of Uhha and Uvinza.  By keeping a direct west course through this jungle until we came to Ukaranga we might be enabled—­we were told—­to travel through Uhha without further trouble.  If I were willing to pay the guide twelve doti, and if I were able to impose silence on my people while passing through the sleeping village, the guide was positive I could reach Ujiji without paying another doti.  It is needless to add, that I accepted the proffered assistance at such a price with joy.

But there was much to be done.  Provisions were to be purchased, sufficient to last four days, for the tramp through the jungle, and men were at once sent with cloth to purchase grain at any price.  Fortune favoured us, for before 8 P.M. we had enough for six days.

November 7th.—­I did not go to sleep at all last night, but a little after midnight, as the moon was beginning to show itself, by gangs of four, the men stole quietly out of the village; and by 3 A.M. the entire Expedition was outside the boma, and not the slightest alarm had been made.  After a signal to the new guide, the Expedition began to move in a southern direction along the right bank of the Kanengi River.  After an hour’s march in this direction, we struck west, across the grassy plain, and maintained it, despite the obstacles we encountered, which were sore enough to naked men.  The bright moon lighted our path:  dark clouds now and then cast immense long shadows over the deserted and silent plains, and the moonbeans were almost obscured, and at such times our position seemed awful—­

 Till the moon. 
 Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
 Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,
 And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.