deep and strong, and in heavy rains overflowing its banks on
both sides.- Lower down a school of hippopotami were
floundering about and snorting. After crossing, we climbed
up a steep bank of metamah and past a swamp, over which
was a most primitive bridge, simply a number of loose
sticks thrown pell-mell lengthwise across supports. The
path now led by a village or group of slave-huts which were
surrounded by coco-nut and mango trees and fields of sim-
sim, rice, and bananas. I finally reached Shamba M’Pandiani
one hour after leaving the Sabaki, so I made the journey of
twelve or thirteen miles in something less than four hours.
I afterwards found this to be the best road, as it passed
almost entirely through cultivated land, was nearly direct,
and, with the exception of the Sabaki river, there was no
water to cross.
