The bamboo grows to serviceable size in the neighbourhood of Rehenneko, strong enough for tent and banghy poles; and in numbers sufficient to supply an army.  The mountain slopes are densely wooded with trees that might supply very good timber for building purposes.

We rested four days at this pleasant spot, to recruit ourselves, and to allow the sick and feeble time to recover a little before testing their ability in the ascent of the Usagara mountains.

The 8th of May saw us with our terribly jaded men and animals winding up the steep slopes of the first line of hills; gaining the summit of which we obtained a view remarkably grand, which exhibited as in a master picture the broad valley of the Makata, with its swift streams like so many cords of silver, as the sunshine played on the unshadowed reaches of water, with its thousands of graceful palms adding not a little to the charm of the scene, with the great wall of the Uruguru and Uswapanga mountains dimly blue, but sublime in their loftiness and immensity—­forming a fit background to such an extensive, far-embracing prospect.

Turning our faces west, we found ourselves in a mountain world, fold rising above fold, peak behind peak, cone jostling cone; away to the north, to the west, to the south, the mountain tops rolled like so many vitrified waves; not one adust or arid spot was visible in all this scene.  The diorama had no sudden changes or striking contrasts, for a universal forest of green trees clothed every peak, cone, and summit.

To the men this first day’s march through the mountain region of Usagara was an agreeable interlude after the successive journey over the flats and heavy undulations of the maritime region, but to the loaded and enfeebled animals it was most trying.  We were minus two by the time we had arrived at our camp, but seven miles from Rehenneko, our first instalment of the debt we owed to Makata.  Water, sweet and clear, was abundant in the deep hollows of the mountains, flowing sometimes over beds of solid granite, sometimes over a rich red sandstone, whose soft substance was soon penetrated by the aqueous element, and whose particles were swept away constantly to enrich the valley below; and in other ravines it dashed,, and roared, miniature thunder, as it leaped over granite boulders and quartz rock.

The 9th of May, after another such an up-and-down course, ascending hills and descending into the twilight depths of deepening valleys, we came suddenly upon the Mukondokwa, and its narrow pent-up valley crowded with rank reedy grass, cane, and thorny bushes; and rugged tamarisk which grappled for existence with monster convolvuli, winding their coils around their trunks with such tenacity and strength that the tamarisk seemed grown but for their support.

The valley was barely a quarter of a mile broad in some places—­ at others it widened to about a mile.  The hills on either side shot up into precipitous slopes, clothed ,with mimosa, acacia, and tamarisk, enclosing a river and valley whose curves and folds were as various as a serpent’s.