in Utaturu. He fought with Ituru, and, according
to Mgongo Tembo’s chief, lost 1100 men two
months before we entered the country. Mgongo
Tembo, who kept a wary eye upon the formidable
chiefs movements, informed us that Mirambo
was in front of us, fighting the Wasukuma.
Mgongo Tembo further said, in explanation of
the unprovoked attacks of the Wanyaturu upon
us, that we ought not to have bestowed the
heart of the presented ox upon the magic doctor
of Vinyata, as by the loss of that diffuser of
blood, the Wanyaturu believed we had left our
own bodies weakened and would be an easy
prey to them. “The Wanyaturu are robbers
and sons of robbers,” said he fiercely, after
listening to the recital of our experiences in
Ituru.
On the 1 st February, after a very necessary
halt of two days at Mgongo Tembo, with an
a dition to our force of eight pagazis and two
guides, and encouraged by favourable reports
of the country in front, we entered Mangura in
Usukuma near a strange valley which contained
a forest of borassus palms. In the beds of the
several streams we crossed this day we observed
granite boulders, blue shale, basalt, porphyry
and quartz.
Beyond Mangura, or about six miles west of
it, was situate Igira, a sparse settlement overlooking
the magnificent plain of Luwamberri, at
[■Feb. 2, 18751 THE p la in OF LUWAMBERRI. 169
L Igira. J
an altitude b y boiling-point o f 5350 feet. A camp
which we established in this plain was ascertained
with the same apparatus to be 4475 feet.
Ten miles farther, near a sluggish ditch-like
creek, the boiling-point showed 425° feet, only
100 feet higher than L ak e Victoria.
A s far as Igira the myombo flourished, but
when we descended into the plain, and the
elevation above the sea decreased to 4000 feet,
we discovered that the baobab became the
principal feature o f the vegetation, giving place
soon after to thorny acacias and a variety o f
scrub, succeeded in their turn b y a vast expanse
o f tawny grass.
The Luwamberri plain— with its breadth o f
nearly forty miles, its indefinite length o f level
reach towards the . N.N. W ., its low altitude
above the Victorian L ake , the wave-worn slopes
o f the higher elevations which hem it on the
east and the south— appears to me to have been
in ancient times a long arm o f the great lake
which was our prospective goal at this period.
About sixteen miles from Igira there is a small
sluggish stream with an almost imperceptible
current northward, but though it was insignificant
at the time o f our crossing, there were certain
traces on the tall grass to show that during the
middle o f the rainy season it is nearly a mile
broad, and v e ry deep. Several nullahs or ravines