hours we reached the mooring-place opposite the
station, Chogud, fastened the canoe, and la y down to
sleep. Early after dawn, the jemadar, with his guard,
advanced to meet us, welcomed us with sundry complimentary
discharges of their matchlocks, and escorted
us to their post. The jemadar’s guard was composed
of twenty-five men, most of whom were here, whilst
the other few held another fort on the top of a hid
called Tongud. Volunteers were now called for to
accompany us, who would carry each his arms, a little
food, and such baggage as might be necessary—just
enough to march up rapidly to Fuga, to have a little
shooting in some favourable jungles near there, and
return again as soon as possible. There was no difficulty,
as the jemadar foresaw. The Beluches receive
so little pay from their sultan that any windfall like
this was naturally welcome; and out of the little
garrison five men were readily enlisted ; besides these,
they supplied four slave - servants, and two men as
guides.
With one day’s delay in preparing, we left Chogue
in the evening, and commenced a scrambling journey;
all the men fully loaded, and ourselves much the same.
On the morning of the following day, after travelling
by a footpath over undulating country, we
mounted the hill of Tongue, and put up in the fort.
Mount Tongue is itself an outlying hill, detached
from the massive clusters of Usumbara by a deep rolling
valley of broken ground of desert forest, which,
as we afterwards saw by their numerous tracks, must
contain, during the rainy season, vast herds of the
elephant and buffalo, as well as antelopes and lions,
though but few animals of any kind appeared to be here
now. Looking south by west from this height over
the broad valley of the Pangani, I was able to take
compass bearings on some cones in the Uzdgura
country, belonging to the Nguru hills. The whole
country below appeared to be covered with the richest
vegetation, and in the river we could hear the murmuring
sound of a waterfall, said by the Beluches to
be a barrier to the navigation of the river any farther
inland.*
10th February.-^Early in the morning we bid Tongue
Fort adieu, and, descending by its northern slopes,
threaded our way, arching round by north to westward,
through the forests below, until late in the evening
we arrived within a short distance of a hill called
Khombora; and here, as the darkness of night was
closing in, the party by. accident divided: some, taking
. a more northerly track—the proper one—soon came
across a nullah containing water,—the thing we were
then in search of; whilst we, following on the heelp
of the guide, lost the way, and, coming upon the same
watercourse lower down the stream, bivouacked for
the night alongside some green, fetid, stagnant pools,
in which a host of young frogs were keeping up a
merry concert. We fired guns, but without avail, the
distance we were separated by being too great for the
reports to be heard.
* See farther description of this, page 185.