How useful the boat and canoes were to us may be imagined from the fact that it required us to make three round trips to carry 227 loads. Even then it occupied all the healthy men until night. The people were so reduced by hunger, that over a third could do no more than crawl. I was personally reduced to two bananas on this day from morning to night. But some of our Zanzibaris had found nothing to subsist on for two entire days, which was enough to sap the strength of the best. A foraging party of No. 1 Company crossed the river to Avatiko settlement, and found a small supply of young fruit, but they captured a woman who stated that she knew and could guide us to plantains as large as her arms. The 27th of September was a halt. I despatched Lieutenant Stairs to explore ahead along the river, and 180 men across river to forage for food, with our female captive as guide. The former returned to report that no village had been seen, and to detail an exciting encounter he had had with elephants, from which it appeared he had a narrow escape. The Zanzibaris came back with sufficient plantains to distribute from sixty to eighty per man. If the people had followed our plan of economising the food, we should have had less suffering to record, but their appetites were usually ungovernable. The quantity now distributed impartially, ought to have served them for from six to eight days, but several sat up all night to eat, trusting in God to supply them with more on peremptory demand. On the 30th the river and land parties met at lunch time. This day the officers and myself enjoyed a feast. Stairs had discovered a live antelope in a pit, and I had discovered a mess of fresh fish in a native basket-net at the mouth of a small creek. In the afternoon we camped at a portion of the river bank which showed signs of its being used as a landing near a ferry. Soon after camping we were startled by three shots. These indicated the presence of Manyuema, and presently about a dozen fine-looking men stalked into the camp. They were the followers of Kilonga-Longa, the rival of Ugarrowwa in the career of devastation to which these two leaders had committed themselves. The Manyuema informed us that Kilonga-Longa's settlement was but five days' journey, and that as the country was uninhabited it would be necessary to provide rations of plantains which could be procured across river, and that still a month's journey lay between us and the grass land. They advised us to stay at the place two days to prepare the food, to which we were very willing to agree, the discovery of some kind of provisions being imperative.