We passed several happy days at Ujiji, and it was time we were now preparing for our cruise on the Tanganika.  Livingstone was improving every day under the different diet which my cook furnished him.  I could give him no such suppers as that which Jupiter and Mercury received at the cottage of Baucis and Philemon.  We had no berries of chaste Minerva, pickled cherries, endive, radishes, dried figs, dates, fragrant apples, and grapes; but we had cheese, and butter which I made myself, new-laid eggs, chickens, roast mutton, fish from the lake, rich curds and cream, wine from the Guinea-palm, egg-plants, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, pea-nuts, and beans, white honey from Ukaranga, luscious singwe—­a plum-like fruit—­from the forests of Ujiji, and corn scones and dampers, in place of wheaten bread.

During the noontide heats we sat under our veranda discussing our various projects, and in the early morning and evening we sought the shores of the lake—­promenading up and down the beach to breathe the cool breezes which ruffled the surface of the water, and rolled the unquiet surf far up on the smooth and whitened shore.

It was the dry season, and we had most lovely weather; the temperature never was over 80 degrees in the shade.

The market-place overlooking the broad silver water afforded us amusement and instruction.  Representatives of most of the tribes dwelling near the lake were daily found there.  There were the agricultural and pastoral Wajiji, with their flocks and herds; there were the fishermen from Ukaranga and Kaole, from beyond Bangwe, and even from Urundi, with their whitebait, which they called dogara, the silurus, the perch, and other fish; there were the palm-oil merchants, principally from Ujiji and Urundi, with great five-gallon pots full of reddish oil, of the consistency of butter; there were the salt merchants from the salt-plains of Uvinza and Uhha; there were the ivory merchants from Uvira and Usowa; there were the canoe-makers from Ugoma and Urundi; there were the cheap-Jack pedlers from Zanzibar, selling flimsy prints, and brokers exchanging blue mutunda beads for sami-sami, and sungomazzi, and sofi.  The sofi beads are like pieces of thick clay-pipe stem about half an inch long, and are in great demand here.  Here were found Waguhha, Wamanyuema, Wagoma, Wavira, Wasige, Warundi, Wajiji, Waha, Wavinza, Wasowa, Wangwana, Wakawendi, Arabs, and Wasawahili, engaged in noisy chaffer and barter.  Bareheaded, and almost barebodied, the youths made love to the dark-skinned and woolly-headed Phyllises, who knew not how to blush at the ardent gaze of love, as their white sisters; old matrons gossiped, as the old women do everywhere; the children played, and laughed, and struggled, as children of our own lands; and the old men, leaning on their spears or bows, were just as garrulous in the Place de Ujiji as aged elders in other climes.

CHAPTER XIII.  OUR CRUISE ON THE LAKE TANGANIKA—­
               EXPLORATION OF THE NORTH-END OF THE LAKE—­
               THE RUSIZI IS DISCOVERED TO ENTER INTO THE LAKE—­
               RETURN TO UJIJI.