On the third day the camp was visited by the ambassadors of Her Highness the Sultana of Simbamwenni, who came as her representatives to receive the tribute which she regards herself as powerful enough to enforce.  But they, as well as Madame Simbamwenni, were informed, that as we knew it was their custom to charge owners of caravans but one tribute, and as they remembered the Musungu (Farquhar) had paid already, it was not fair that I should have to pay again.  The ambassadors replied with a “Ngema” (very well), and promised to carry my answer back to their mistress.  Though it was by no means “very well " in fact, as it will be seen in a subsequent chapter how the female Simbamwenni took advantage of an adverse fortune which befell me to pay herself.  With this I close the chapter of incidents experienced during our transit across the maritime region.

CHAPTER VI.  TO UGOGO.

A valley of despond, and hot-bed of malaria.—­Myriads of vermin.—­ The Makata swamp.—­A sorrowful experience catching a deserter.—­A far-embracing prospect.—­Illness of William Farquhar.-Lake Ugombo.—­ A land of promise.—­The great Kisesa.—­The plague of earwigs.

The distance from Bagamoyo to Simbamwenni we found to be 119 miles, and was accomplished in fourteen marches.  But these marches, owing to difficulties arising from the Masika season, and more especially to the lagging of the fourth caravan under Maganga, extended to twenty-nine days, thus rendering our progress very slow indeed—­ but a little more than four miles a-day.  I infer, from what I have seen of the travelling, that had I not been encumbered by the sick Wanyamwezi porters, I could have accomplished the distance in sixteen days.  For it was not the donkeys that proved recreant to my confidence; they, poor animals, carrying a weight of 150 lbs. each, arrived at Simbamwenni in first-rate order; but it was Maganga, composed of greed and laziness, and his weakly-bodied tribe, who were ever falling sick.  In dry weather the number of marches might have been much reduced.  Of the half-dozen of Arabs or so who preceded this Expedition along this route, two accomplished the entire distance in eight days.  From the brief descriptions given of the country, as it day by day expanded to our view, enough may be gleaned to give readers a fair idea of it.  The elevation of Simbamwenni cannot be much over 1,000 feet above the level, the rise of the land having been gradual.  It being the rainy season, about which so many ominous statements were doled out to us by those ignorant of the character of the country, we naturally saw it under its worst aspect; but, even in this adverse phase of it, with all its depth of black mud, its excessive dew, its dripping and chill grass, its density of rank jungle, and its fevers, I look back upon the scene with pleasure, for the wealth and prosperity it promises to some civilized nation, which in some future time will come and take