Such was the country that had been described to me by Dr. Kandt, who had visited it six months before, as a beautiful district teeming with peaceful agricultural folk. The natives informed me that of all that flourishing community but sixty remained. I was very anxious about Sharp, fearing that he might enter the country by a different road to that by which I had just left. Had he arrived hampered by a large caravan and cattle, he must inevitably have been destroyed. Hoping that he was still south of the volcanoes, I hurried east through the forest that is springing up on the great lava-bed thrown out by the last eruption but one. Here too the path was strewn with skulls, showing the desperate efforts that the Baleka had made to force an entry into Bugoie. Late in the afternoon we arrived at an old volcanic cone. This was the outpost of Bugoie, and the few wretched survivors, seeing us approaching through the forest, naturally mistook us for Baleka, and quickly prepared for battle. It was only after an hour’s shouting that we allayed their fears. With some difficulty we managed to procure a jar of bad water, which we sadly needed, having had nothing to drink since daybreak, and we endeavoured to appease our ravening hunger with a brace of pumpkins, which was all the poor creatures had to offer us. Their destitution was complete, and filled me with pity, but I was powerless to assist them. It was impossible to obtain any definite information about Sharp, and it was with the direst forebodings that I started the following morning, as I knew that there was now no chance of intercepting him. However, an hour later I met an elderly pigmy in the forest and managed to induce him to talk. He was a splendid little fellow full of self-confidence, and gave me most concise information, stating that the white man with many belongings had passed near by two days before, and had then gone down to the lake-shore, where he was camped at that moment. These people must have a wonderful code of signs and signals, as, despite their isolated and nomadic existence, they always know exactly what is happening everywhere. He was a typical pigmy as found on the volcanoes--squat, gnarled, proud, and easy of carriage. His beard hung down over his chest, and his thighs and chest were covered with wiry hair. He carried the usual pigmy bow made of two pieces of cane spliced together with grass, and with a string made of a single strand of a rush that grows in the forests. I sent off two of my boys with a note to Sharp, and pushed on as fast as possible to the food districts of Bugoie, where my boys ate so much that I despaired of their surviving. For the next two days I was very ill, owing to my having eaten a number of green bananas in the first banana plantation that I entered. The scarcity of water made it still more difficult to endure the pangs of hunger during the last day of our march.