Leaving this valley, we rose to the table of Manyovi, overhung
with much higher hills, looking, according to the accounts of our
Hottentots, as they eyed the fine herds of cattle grazing on the
slopes, so like the range in Kafraria, that they formed their
expectations accordingly, and appeared, for the first time since
leaving the coast, happy at the prospect before them, little
dreaming that such rich places were seldom to be met with. The
Wanyamuezi porters even thought they had found a paradise, and
forthwith threw down their loads as the villagers came to offer
them grain for sale; so that, had I not had the Wanguana a little
under control, we should not have completed our distance that
day, and so reached Manyonge, which reminded me, by its ugliness,
of the sterile Somali land. Proceeding through the semi-desert
rolling table-land--in one place occupied by men who build their
villages in large open squares of flat-topped mud huts, which,
when I have occasion to refer to them in future, I shall call by
their native name tembe--we could see on the right hand the
massive mountains overhanging the Mukondokua river, to the front
the western chain of these hills, and to the left the high crab-
claw shaped ridge, which, extending from the western chain,
circles round conspicuously above the swelling knolls which lie
between the two main rocky ridges. Contorted green thorn-trees,
"elephant-foot" stumps, and aloes, seem to thrive best here, by
their very nature indicating what the country is, a poor stony
land. Our camp was pitched by the river Rumuma, where, sheltered
from the winds, and enriched by alluvial soil, there ought to
have been no scarcity; but still the villagers had nothing to
sell.