Chimunémuné; we see many albinos and partial lepers and syphilis is
prevalent. It is too trying to travel during the rains.

_14th January, 1870._--The Muabé palm had taken possession of a broad
valley, and the leaf-stalks, as thick as a strong man's arm and 20 feet
long, had fallen off and blocked up all passage except by one path made
and mixed up by the feet of buffaloes and elephants. In places like this
the leg goes into elephants' holes up to the thigh and it is grievous;
three hours of this slough tired the strongest: a brown stream ran
through the centre, waist deep, and washed off a little of the adhesive
mud. Our path now lay through a river covered with tikatika, a living
vegetable bridge made by a species of glossy leafed grass which felts
itself into a mat capable of bearing a man's weight, but it bends in a
foot or fifteen inches every step; a stick six feet long could not reach
the bottom in certain holes we passed. The lotus, or sacred lily, which
grows in nearly all the shallow waters of this country, sometimes
spreads its broad leaves over the bridge so as to lead careless
observers to think that it is the bridge builder, but the grass
mentioned is the real agent. Here it is called Kintéfwétéfwé; on
Victoria Nyanza Titatika.

_15th January, 1870._--Choleraic purging again came on till all the
water used was boiled, but I was laid up by sheer weakness near the hill
Chanza.

_20th and 21st January. 1870._--Weakness and illness goes on because we
get wet so often; the whole party suffers, and they say that they will
never come here again. The Manyango Rivulet has fine sweet water, but
the whole country is smothered with luxuriant vegetation.