wild dreary look of a Highland moor in the heart of
Africa, hut with this difference, that a garden of plantain
forms part of the landscape. Again, pick up a
walnut-sized nodule of iron, covered with a rusty red
dust, and think how rudely, how quietly, they turn it
into a spear that glistens like steel! Again, see the
long high escarpments, and wonder at the power that
had raised them into such a position. The volcanic
mounds in Kishakka, seen from the spur above Vi-
hembd, were most curious, so many of them rising in
one part of the horizon like mole-heaps on the earth’s
surface, some of their tops nearer us being sterile and
of red grit, their sides strewed over with white quartz
fragments,; others clothed with pale green grass to
their very summits, and dotted with trees sweeping
down to, and shading with verdure, the valleys below.
Their forms were saddle-shaped, horse-shoes, and frustums
of cones; many were crowned with rock, and
nearly all had stratified splinters bristling from their
sides. The eastern slopes below the escarpments,
where the debris lay, were more cultivated than the
western rocky parts. The natives bestowed great care
on their fields, hoeing them up by the 8th October for
the expected rain, collecting the weeds in heaps with
a forked stick, and burning them. Fields of plantain-
trees were grown, each tree six feet apart. From the
fruit a sweet spirituous wine is made, tasting somewhat
like still hock, and quite as pleasant. The decayed
leaves and stems of the plantain were allowed
to remain on the ground to preserve the roots and
soil from the heat of the sun, and afford nourishment
to a crop of beans, “ maharageh,” peculiar to this country,
and often grown in the shade of the trees. The
other crops seen ripening in November, were Indian
corn and manioc; sweet potato was ripe and abundant
; sorghum, “ M’tama,” at that season, was scarce
and dear; tobacco, fowls, goat, and cows were more
expensive than we had found them in Unyamuezi.
The cattle looked wildly at our dress, and were here
a different breed—namely, the heavy, ungraceful, large-
horned variety of Karague, without humps, and many
of them probably from Unyoro, hornless, like the Tees-
water breed, but bony and gaunt from bad grazing.
All night the people allow their cattle to remain in
the field, without any fence, standing round smouldering
fires by their habitations. I observed at cow-
milking time the skin of a calf placed in front of one
cow, when she licked it all over, and while her hindlegs
were tied with a thong, the milk was taken. In
a goat that was killed, a black glazed ball of hair very
much resembling its own was found inside : no cattle
diseases were heard of. The manner our men had of
getting hold of a vicious cow was quite African. A
noose is laid on the ground, she is driven over it till
by perseverance she is caught; or if she is to be killed,
they chase her with a sword-bayonet, and either hamstring
or break the bone of a hind-leg.
In the southern forests of Uzinza, hartebeest, eland,
zebra, pig, and various species of antelope might be
shot from horseback or on foot, as there is a wide
range of fine country for them; but the greatest number
and variety of animals I saw in Africa were in the
valley of Urigi, which is the boundary between Uzinza
and Karague; all the above animals, with the rhinoceros
and giraffe, might certainly be seen any morning
by the sportsman. The valley or plain is covered with