an experiment, that the cart was wheeled into the depths of the tall reeds, and there left.  The central figure was Shaw himself, riding at a gait which seemed to leave it doubtful on my mind whether he or his animal felt most sleepy.  Upon expostulating with him for keeping the caravan so long waiting when there was a march on hand, in a most peculiar voice—­which he always assumed when disposed to be ugly-tempered—­he said he had done the best he could; but as I had seen the solemn pace at which he rode, I felt dubious about his best endeavours; and of course there was a little scene, but the young European mtongi of an East African expedition must needs sup with the fellows he has chosen.

We arrived at Madete at 4 P.M., minus two donkeys, which had stretched their weary limbs in death.  We had crossed the Mukondokwa about 3 P.M., and after taking its bearings and course, I made sure that its rise took place near a group of mountains about forty miles north by west of Nguru Peak.  Our road led W.N.W., and at this place finally diverged from the river.

On the 14th, after a march of seven miles over hills whose sandstone and granite formation cropped visibly here and there above the surface, whose stony and dry aspect seemed reflected in every bush and plant, and having gained an altitude of about eight hundred feet above the flow of the Mukondokwa, we sighted the Lake of Ugombo—­a grey sheet of water lying directly at the foot of the hill, from whose summit we gazed at the scene.  The view was neither beautiful nor pretty, but what I should call refreshing; it afforded a pleasant relief to the eyes fatigued from dwelling on the bleak country around.  Besides, the immediate neighbourhood of the lake was too tame to call forth any enthusiasm; there were no grandly swelling mountains, no smiling landscapes—­nothing but a dun-brown peak, about one thousand feet high above the surface of the lake at its western extremity, from which the lake derived its name, Ugombo; nothing but a low dun-brown irregular range, running parallel with its northern shore at the distance of a mile; nothing but a low plain stretching from its western shore far away towards the Mpwapwa Mountains and Marenga Mkali, then apparent to us from our coign of vantage, from which extensive scene of dun-brownness we were glad to rest our eyes on the quiet grey water beneath.

Descending from the summit of the range, which bounded the lake east for about four hundred feet, we travelled along the northern shore.  The time occupied in the journey from the eastern to the western extremity was exactly one hour and thirty minutes.