a slaughtered ox, and if you are unprepared to encounter these gentry take warning and turn away.

The next day three hours' walking over a very heavy black soil-washed down by the rains from the hills -brought us to Kisiwani, a dry river-bed at the foot of the Pare hills. Here I was so utterly exhausted and faint with the exertions and anxieties of the last few days, following my touch of fever, that I had to spend half the day in complete repose in order to recruit my strength. It was a charming spot in which to do so. Magnificent forest trees towered high into the air; but higher still, and cutting off half the heavens, as it were, rose the noble Pare mountains. A soothing atmosphere of peace pervaded our camp. Hither came no Masai, for they wisely kept aloof from the indignant attacks of the Pare mountaineers, who had more than once given these freebooters a sound thrashing. Nevertheless to honest men like us they were kind and friendly. They brought us gourds full of ice-cold water from their mountain streams, and ripe bananas, and funny little black sheep. Their chief sent me a present and an invitation to come and see him in his mountain home. I would have gladly done so, but I felt no confidence in my walking powers, and I dreaded to bring on another attack of fever by over-exertion. So I sent him several choice gifts and complimentary messages, and said when I next came that way I would remember his kindness to a passing stranger.

The Wa-pare, from what I have seen of them, seem a very amiable people, like the Wa-taveita. I take a great interest in their country, because I regard it as one of the links of healthy land uniting Kilima-njaro -the future sanatorium of Eastern Africa-with the

coast. Twenty miles beyond Kisiwani we came to the pleasing and fruitful district of Gonja, a settlement of Wa-zeguha, ruled by sons of Semboja, the chief of Usambara, a vassal of the Sayyid of Zanzibar. Here signs of coast influence were quite apparent, and for the first time since leaving Mombasa at the commencement of the expedition, I knew I was not among savages.

Gonja, with its clear, swift river, its splendid groves of forest trees, its luxuriant plantations, reminded us of our favourite Taveita, and we felt a keen sympathy with this place, which was the first inhabited spot we had encountered in seventy miles of wilderness. At the back of Gonja, in the Pare hills, the scenery was enchantingly lovely-wooded crags, rich valleys, emerald-green banana groves, rippling streams, and splendid waterfalls, one of which, another Staubbach, gave rise to the river which encircles the town. We could see its grey-white shoot of descending water in the distance, too far off to show the changing light of motion, and apparently as unvarying and immobile as the blue hill-side, just like a photographed waterfall. On a little peninsula backed by hills, and nearly surrounded by a loop of the river, the rambling village of Gonja is built, the whole congeries of houses being encircled with a tall fence of euphorbias and other prickly shrubs. The dwellings are fashioned much after the style of the native houses on the coast— structures of wattle and clay, generally divided into several apartments.

We found the chief and notables dressed like respectable Arabs, and they greeted us with Arab salutations. I ascertained that not only they but the people they governed were great linguists. They spoke Ki-zeguha,

Ki-pare, Ki-swahili, a little Arabic, and Masai. The latter language they were quite versed in, and for some hours I sat down with my note-book adding considerably to the information I had already amassed.

The upper classes in Gonja, and especially those connected with the family of the chief Semboja, look like Arabs in their complexion and physiognomy. They have, however, woolly hair. I questioned them as to their origin, but they did not acknowledge Arab intermixture; nevertheless, they are evidently a cross breed, though the intermixture may be and probably is ancient. They are the outpost of-may I call it civilization?-and Mohammedanism in this part of Africa. Here one's life is quite safe; here no presents are asked for, and here money is taken and understood. How curious is the spread of the influence of a strong government! Since the days that India has been well governed under British rule, her commerce and her currency have begun to extend themselves widely over Eastern Africa, from Somali-land to Natal, and here in the market-place of Gonja, nearly a hundred miles from the coast, you will find the people talking of pice, annas, and rupees, and see the image and superscription of her Majesty the Empress of India circulating freely among the various tribes who come hither to trade.

CHAPTER XVI.

GONJA TO LONDON.

LEAVING this settlement of Gonja we walked through a beautiful and well-forested plain, brimming over with fertility, although little cultivated. We camped at Kihungwe's, another Zeguha chief of Semboja's family, who has made a settlement on the banks of the Mkomazi river, and attracted to his precincts vagabonds and fugitives from all adjacent countries. We were now at the northern entrance of a broad and level plain which stretches between the mountains of Pare and Usambara and slopes very gently to the River Ruvu. It is perhaps forty miles in width, uninhabited save by a few harmless bands of Masai, whose spirit has been broken by repeated defeats received from the Wa-sambara and the Wa-pare, and who are now too meek to demand tribute from passing caravans. I met some of these people on the road, and stopped to chat with them and glean some more notes about their language. We also encountered some of the Wa-mbugu, a curious race of cattle-keepers dwelling at the foot of the Usambara hills.

This plain is covered with thin shrubs and stunted trees, with occasional patches of emerald-green grass. It is the resort of immense quantities of game, which

here finds cover, sustenance, and water, for the Mkomazi flows through the centre.

We found the recent spoor of elephants, and saw at different times giraffes, elands, gnus, and cobus antelopes. I shot a cow eland, but she managed to get away into the dense bush, and we had not time to follow her trail. Baboons were singularly abundant in the big trees, and as for the guinea-fowls!-I never saw the like in any part of Africa. Altogether this Mkomazi valley teemed with life, and would doubtless prove as fine a hunting-ground as Ngurungani, or the vicinity of Lake Jipé.

As we approached Mazindi, the capital of King Semboja, the forest trees grew loftier and richer in foliage, and the ground began to change from the flat plain to a succession of ridges and low hills. We were, indeed, approaching the verge of Usambara; in fact a kind of "undercliff," lying at the foot of those extraordinary mountains which towered from 4000 to 7000 feet above the plain. In all my varied African experiences, in the Atlas Mountains of Algeria, in the Chella range of Southern Angola, on Kilima-njaro, or elsewhere, I have never seen anything so unique and strangely imposing as the western aspect of Usambara. Imagine giant cliffs of granite and limestone rising nearly like a sheer wall 4000 feet and more from the plain. The ascent looks impossible, and one imagines a descent might only be performed by lowering oneself from the top with several thousand feet of rope. At the back of this giant barrier of granite there lies a lovely land of forests, streams, and mountain meadows, wherein reside-strange as it seems to us who wander in this savage wilderness!-Englishmen, labouring hard to spread all that is best in religion and civilization among