We were now on the borders of Uyanzi, or, as it is better known, “Magunda Mkali “—­the Hot-ground, or Hot-field.  We had passed the village populated by Wagogo, and were about to shake the dust of Ugogo from our feet.  We had entered Ugogo full of hopes, believing it a most pleasant land—­a land flowing with milk and honey.  We had been grievously disappointed; it proved to be a land of gall and bitterness, full of trouble and vexation of spirit, where danger was imminent at every step—­where we were exposed to the caprice of inebriated sultans.  Is it a wonder, then, that all felt happy at such a moment?  With the prospect before us of what was believed by many to be a real wilderness, our ardor was not abated, but was rather strengthened.  The wilderness in Africa proves to be, in many instances, more friendly than the populated country.  The kirangozi blew his kudu horn much more merrily on this morning than he was accustomed to do while in Ugogo.  We were about to enter Magunda Mkali.  At 9 A.M., three hours after leaving Munieka, and two hours since we had left the extreme limits of Ugogo, we were halted at Mabunguru Nullah.  The Nullah runs southwesterly after leaving its source in the chain of hills dividing Ugogo from Magunda Mkali.  During the rainy season it must be nearly impassable, owing to the excessive slope of its bed.  Traces of the force of the torrent are seen in the syenite and basalt boulders which encumber the course.  Their rugged angles are worn smooth, and deep basins are excavated where the bed is of the rock, which in the dry season serve as reservoirs.  Though the water contained in them has a slimy and greenish appearance, and is well populated with frogs, it is by no means unpalatable.

At noon we resumed our march, the Wanyamwezi cheering, shouting, and singing, the Wangwana soldiers, servants, and pagazis vieing with them in volume of voice and noise-making the dim forest through which we were now passing resonant with their voices.

The scenery was much more picturesque than any we had yet seen since leaving Bagamoyo.  The ground rose into grander waves—­hills cropped out here and there—­great castles of syenite appeared, giving a strange and weird appearance to the forest.  From a distance it would almost seem as if we were approaching a bit of England as it must have appeared during feudalism; the rocks assumed such strange fantastic shapes.  Now they were round boulders raised one above another, apparently susceptible to every breath of wind; anon, they towered like blunt-pointed obelisks, taller than the tallest trees; again they assumed the shape of mighty waves, vitrified; here, they were a small heap of fractured and riven rock; there, they rose to the grandeur of hills.