The Sultan of Bihawana, though his subjects were evil-disposed, and ready-handed at theft and murder, contented himself with three doti as honga.  From this chief I received news of my fourth caravan, which had distinguished itself in a fight with some outlawed subjects of his; my soldiers had killed two who had attempted, after waylaying a couple of my pagazis, to carry away a bale of cloth and a bag of beads; coming up in time, the soldiers decisively frustrated the attempt.  The Sultan thought that if all caravans were as well guarded as mine were, there would be less depredations committed on them while on the road; with which I heartily agreed.

The next sultan’s tembe through whose territory we marched, this being on the 30th May, was at Kididimo, but four miles from Bihawna.  The road led through a flat elongated plain, lying between two lengthy hilly ridges, thickly dotted with the giant forms of the baobab.  Kididimo is exceedingly bleak in aspect.  Even the faces of the Wagogo seemed to have contracted a bleak hue from the general bleakness around.  The water of the pits obtained in the neighbourhood had an execrable flavor, and two donkeys sickened and died in less than an hour from its effects.  Man suffered nausea and a general irritability of the system, and accordingly revenged himself by cursing the country and its imbecile ruler most heartily.  The climax came, however, when Bombay reported, after an attempt to settle the Muhongo, that the chief’s head had grown big since he heard that the Musungu had come, and that its “bigness” could not be reduced unless he could extract ten doti as tribute.  Though the demand was large, I was not in a humour—­being feeble, and almost nerveless, from repeated attacks of the Mukunguru—­to dispute the sum:  consequently it was paid without many words.  But the Arabs continued the whole afternoon negotiating, and at the end had to pay eight doti each.

Between Kididimo and Nyambwa, the district of the Sultan Pembera Pereh, was a broad and lengthy forest and jungle inhabited by the elephant, rhinoceros, zebra, deer, antelope, and giraffe.  Starting at dawn of the 31st; we entered the jungle, whose dark lines and bosky banks were clearly visible from our bower at Kididimo; and, travelling for two hours, halted for rest and breakfast, at pools of sweet water surrounded by tracts of vivid green verdure, which were a great resort for the wild animals of the jungle, whose tracks were numerous and recent.  A narrow nullah, shaded deeply with foliage, afforded excellent retreats from the glaring sunshine.  At meridian, our thirst quenched, our hunger satisfied, our gourds refilled, we set out from the shade into the heated blaze of hot noon.  The path serpentined in and out of jungle, and thin forest, into open tracts of grass bleached white as stubble, into thickets of gums and thorns, which emitted an odour as rank as a stable; through clumps of wide-spreading mimosa