an ugly tube of the gourd thrust through the lower lobe of the
ear. Their colour is a soft ruddy brown, with a slight infusion
of black, not unlike that of a rich plum. Impulsive by nature,
and exceedingly avaricious, they pester travellers beyond all
conception, by thronging the road, jeering, quizzing, and
pointing at them; and in camp, by intrusively forcing their way
into the midst of the kit, and even into the stranger's tent.
Caravans, in consequence, never enter their villages, but camp
outside, generally under the big "gouty-limbed" trees--encircling
their entire camp sometimes with a ring-fence of thorns to
prevent any sudden attack.

To resume the thread of the journey: we found, on arrival in
Ugogo, very little more food than in Usagara for the Wagogo were
mixing their small stores of grain with the monkey-bread seeds of
the gouty-limbed tree. Water was so scarce in the wells at this
season that we had to buy it at the normal price of country beer;
and, as may be imagined where such distress in food was existing,
cows, goats, sheep, and fowls were also selling at high rates.

Our mules here gave us the slip again, and walked all the way
back to Marenga Mkhali, where they were found and brought back by
some Wagogo, who took four yards of merikani in advance, with a
promise of four more on return, for the job--their chief being
security for their fidelity. This business detained us two days,
during which time I shot a new variety of florikan, peculiar in
having a light blue band stretching from the nose over the eye to
the occiput. Each day, while we resided here, cries were raised
by the villagers that the Wahumba were coming, and then all the
cattle out in the plains, both far and near, were driven into the